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VICTORIAN

POETS.

VICTORI

AN

POETS

REVISED, AND EXTENDED, BY A SUPPLEMENTARY


CHAPTER, TO THE FIFTIETH YEAR OF THE
PERIOD UNDER REVIEW

BY
EDMUND CLARENCE STEDMAN
AUTHOR OF " POBTS OP AMERCA M

BOSTON AND NEW YORK


HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
1887

Copyright, 1875 and 1887,


Bv JAMES R. OSGOOD & CO. and HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
All rights reserved.

THIRTEENTH EDITION.

PREFACE TO THE THIRTEENTH EDITION.


(1887.)

' "HE origin of the book now presented in an enlarged


form is given in the Preface to the edition of 1875.
While an outgrowth, as there stated, of a few essays each
relating to a single personage, its main value, from the
ultimate point of view, consisted first in the statement of
what appear to me the true canons of imaginative art, as
applied to the office of the poet ; again, in studies of the
creative temperament derived from sympathetic examina
tion of its possessors ; and finally, in a record of the pro
gress of song during a noteworthy period, and of phases
reflecting the thought, passion, ideality, of the specified
country and age.
Chapters VII and VIII, in which miscellaneous groups
were considered, though written as an afterthought, and
not possessing the artistic unity of other chapters, proved
especially serviceable in the last-named capacity. My gain
in comprehension of the general drift was greater than any
fancied loss through deviation from an eclectic literary
standard. They completed, moreover, the annals of the
period, and gave my book a practical if secondary value as
a work of reference.

vi

PREFACE TO THE THIRTEENTH EDITION.

Whether its early welcome at home and abroad, and the


favor still vouchsafed to it, have been due to the quality of
my argument, or to the need of such a record, or to both
together, it is in view of this encouragement, and of the
changes incident to the close of the typical Victorian
epoch, that I add the supplemental matter which extends
our survey to the present year.
This seems the more expedient, because in a later trea
tise, Poets of America, I have applied the same method of
criticism, with similar objects in view, to the poets and
poetry of my own land. The rise of true poetry here was
singularly coincident with that of the Victorian school in
Great Britain, and my home -survey applies to the fifty
years now ending with the celebration of Her Majesty's
prolonged reign. The Victorian Poets, as enlarged, and its
companion-volume thus proffer a general view of the poetry
of our English tongue for the last half - century. The
supplement itself, beyond that portion devoted to the
afterwork of veteran leaders, is necessarily compressed
and inclusive : in other words, is written upon the plan of
Chapters VII and VIII, to discover current tendencies
and the outlook, and to enhance the reference-value of the
entire work.

After a lapse of time which enables me to examine my


original chapters almost as if they were the production of
another hand, it would be strange if I did not observe cer
tain portions that would be written differently, with later
and perhaps riper judgment, if I were to write them now.

PREFACE TO THE THIRTEENTH EDITION.

vii

I see that frequent attention was paid to matters of art


and form. Technical structure is of special interest to the
young artist or critic. There was a marked and fascinat
ing advance in rhythmical variety and finish during the
early influence of Tennyson. I do not regret its discus
sion, since throughout the book persistent stress is also
laid upon the higher offices of art as the expression of the
soul, and its barrenness without simplicity, earnestness, na
tive impulse, and imaginative power. The American trea
tise, less occupied with technical criticism, and examining
its topic in connection with the formation of national senti
ment, enabled me to finish all I desired to say concerning
poetry. These books are hopefully addressed to those who
will read the two together, and each of them not in frag
ments but as a whole.
As to the brief opinions with respect to younger singers,
I think that a good deal of what was said has been justi
fied, and in a few cases notably, by their subsequent ca
reers. Examining the more elaborate reviews of other
poets, I wish to amend in some degree my early criticism.
With the comments upon Landor, Hood, Mrs. Browning,
Tennyson, Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne, I have no
serious disagreement. What is said of the last-named four,
in the new text, is in keeping with what was first said, and
illustrated by an account of their recent works.
I confess, however, that the prominence given to Proc
ter seems hardly in accord with the just perspective of
a synthetic view. It grew out of the writer's distaste
for two characteristics of latter-day verse : on the one

viii

PREFACE TO THE THIRTEENTH EDITION.

hand, the doubt and sadness of that which is the most in


tellectual ; on the other, the artificial tone of that offered
by many younger poets, in whom the one thing needful
seemed to be the spontaneity so natural to " Barry Corn
wall."
While I thought the first of these characteristics too ex
cessive in the poetry of Arnold, the cultured master of his
school, I paid full tribute to the majesty of his epic verse.
But I was unjust in a scant appreciation of what is after
all his most ideal trait, and his surest warrant as a poet.
For this fault I now make reparation in the supplement.
One or two errors of fact have been corrected in the
original chapter on Browning, our most suggestive figure
at the close of a period which Tennyson dominated in its
prime. My feeling with respect to some of this profound
writer's idiosyncrasies is still unchanged. Yet in view of
my extended recognition of his matchless insight and re
sources, and conscious of my own respect for the genius
and personality of one to whose works I was guided in
youth by kindred that knew and honored him, it is hard
for me to understand that even his uncompromising wor
shippers can discover between the lines of my criticism
traces of hostility. The chapter, however, is defective in
one important respect. Drawing a sharp distinction be
tween the histrionic, objective method of the early dram
atists and that of Browning, I did not at once follow it with
an incisive statement of the qualities in which his power
and effectiveness do consist. A praiseworthy reader
by which, as before, I mean one who accepts an essay in

PREFACE TO THE THIRTEENTH EDITION.

ix

its entirety, and does not hang his approval or disapproval


upon a single point can find these qualities plainly set
forth in the comments upon Dramatic Lyrics, Men and
Women, Pippa Passes, etc. But that there may be no
doubt, and to make up for possible shortcomings, I have
referred in the supplement at some length to the specific
originality and nature of this poet's dramatic genius.
Beyond these modifications, I have none with which in
this place to trouble the reader, deprecating, as I do, fin
ical changes in prose or poetry once given to the public,
and choosing to let a treatise that has been so leniently ad
judged stand in most respects as it was originally written.
A revision and extension has been made of dates, etc., in
the marginal notes, and some pains taken to insure correct
ness. The new Analytical Index covers both divisions of
the book. My thanks are again due to friends, especially
to Messrs. R. H. Stoddard, R. W. Gilder, Brander Mat
thews, George R. Bishop, and to Mr. William T. Peoples,
of the N. Y. Mercantile Library, for the use of various
books not already upon my shelves, and which my London
agents were unable to procure.
New York, July, 1887.

E. C. S.

TO
GEORGE RIPLEY, LL.D.,
WHOSE JUDGMENT, LEARNING, AND PROFESSIONAL DEVOTION
HAVE CONTRIBUTED TO THE
ADVANCEMENT OF CRITICISM,
AND FURNISHED AN ENVIABLE EXAMPLE TO MEN
OF LETTERS,
Sh,t* Volume i* Itwcribeb.

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION.


(1875.)

tory HE
chapter,
contents
but I will
of prefix
this volume
a brief statement
chiefly relate
of itstoscope,
the
announced at the beginning of the introducand of the principles that underlie its judgment.
Although presented as a book of literary and biograph
ical criticism, it also may be termed an historical review
of the course of British poetry during the present reign,
if not a minute, at least a compact and logical, survey of
the authors and works that mainly demand attention.
Having made a study of the poets who rank as leaders of
the recent British choir, a sense of proportion induced
me to enlarge the result, and to use it as the basis of
a guide-book to the metrical literature of the time and
country in which those poets have flourished. It seemed
to me that, by including a sketch of minor groups and
schools, and giving a connection to the whole, I might
offer a work that would have practical value for uses of
record and reference, in addition to whatever qualities, as
an essay in philosophical criticism, it should be found to
possess.

xiv

PREFACE.

To this end Chapters VII. and VIII. were written ; sidenotes have been affixed throughout the volume, and an
analytical index prepared of the whole. There is much
dispute among the best authorities with respect to literary
and biographical dates, and a few matters of this sort
remain open to doubt ; but in many instances, where the
persons concerned are still living, I have been successful in
obtaining the requisite information at first hand.
A reference to the notes and index will show what seems
to my own mind, after the completion of these essays, their
most conspicuous feature. So many and various qualities
are displayed by the poets under review that, in writing
of their works and lives, I have expressed incidentally
such ideas concerning the aim and constituents of Poetry
as I have gathered during my acquaintance with the his
toric body of English verse. Often, moreover, a leading
author affords an illustration of some special phase of the
poetic art and life. The case of Browning, for example,
at once excites discussion as to the nature of poetic expres
sion ; that of Mrs. Browning involves a study of the poetic
temperament, its joys and sorrows, its growth, ripeness,
and decline. Hood's life was that of a working man of
letters ; in Tennyson's productions we observe every aspect
of poetry as an art, and the best average representation of
the modern time ; while Landor not only affords another
study of temperament, but shows the benefits and dangers
of culture, of amateurship, and of intellectual versatility as
opposed to special gift. In Arnold we find a passion of the

PREFACE.

xv

intellect, in Procter the pure lyrical faculty, in Buchanan


the force and weakness of transcendentalism, in Swinburne
the infinite variety of melodious numbers, and the farthest
extreme of rhythm and diction reached at this stage of
metrical art. Home, Bailey, Lytton, Morris, and Rossetti
are each suggestive of important and varying elements
which make up the general quality of recent imaginative
song. The different forms of poetry reflective, idyllic,
lyric, and dramatic successively or in combination pass
under review, for the modern era has been no less com
posite than refined. If not so eminent for poetic vigor
as the impetuous Georgian revival which preceded it, nor
characterized by dramatic greatness like that of the early
and renowned Elizabethan age, it is in its own way as
remarkable as either of those historic times, and on the
score of complex and technical achievement full of real
significance to the lyric artist and the connoisseur.
In pursuing the general subject by an examination of
the foremost poets, I have tried to convey a just idea of
the career and genius of each, so that any portrait, taken
by itself, might seem complete, and distinct from its fellows.
In certain cases we are required to observe temperament,
in others, extended lyrical achievements or unusual traits
of voice and execution. If my criticism seems more tech
nical than is usual in a work of this kind, it is due, I think,
to the fact that the technical refinement of the period has
been so marked as to demand full recognition and analysis
It is seldom that an earnest reviewer, whether lay or

xvi

PREFACE.

professional, can escape wholly the charge of dogmatism.


Doubtless every reader will discover points that neither
accord with his judgment, nor seem to him fairly taken;
yet I trust that there will be few who will not elsewhere
find reason to consider my work something better than
labor thrown away. After all, a critic speaks only for
himself, and his opinion must be taken for what it is
worth, as being always open to the broader criticism of
those to whom it is submitted.
The chapter on the relations of Tennyson and Theocritus,
though somewhat in the nature of an excursus, relates to
a matter which seems to me of more significance than the
obligations of the modern idyllist to the ancient, namely,
the singular likeness of the Victorian period to the Alex
andrian, manifest in both external conditions and poetic
results.
Let me now say that this book is not the fulfilment of a
deliberate plan, but that a peculiar train of thought and
incident has led to its completion. There are times when
a writer pauses to consider the work produced by his asso
ciates, and the influences by which this has been enlarged
or injured. Reviewing the course of American poetry,
since it may be said to have had a pathway of its own,
I have tried to note the special restrictions and special
advantages by which it has been affected. Our men of
true poetic genius, although they have produced charming
verse of an emotional, lyrical, or descriptive kind* have
seemed indisposed or unable to compose many sustained

PREFACE.

xvii

and important works. At first I designed to write of the


difficulties which they have experienced, consciously or
unconsciously, some of these pertaining to the youth of
the country, and to the fact that, as in the growth of a
sister-art, landscape-painting usually must precede the rise
of a true figure-school. I might touch upon the lack of
inspiring theme and historic halo, of dramatic contrast
and material, and of a public that can appreciate the
structure, no less than the sweetness and quality, of a noble
poem. With various exceptions, there has been a want
of just criticism ; and even now a defect with many of
the poets themselves is a cloudy understanding of their
true mission and of what poetry really is. Beyond the
charm of freshness, no great success in verse is attainable
without that judicial knowledge of the poet's art which
is the equivalent of what is indispensable to the painter,
the sculptor, and the musician, in their respective depart
ments.
But with regard to the causes of the success and failure
of our own poets I easily perceived that some of the most
important were not special, but general : belonging to the
period, and equally affecting the verse of the motherland.
This led me to make a study of a few British poets : first
of one, Landor, whose metrical work did not seem, upon
the whole, a full expression of his unusual genius ; then
of others, notably Tennyson, who more obviously represent
the diverse elements of their time. In order to formulate
my own ideas of poetry and criticism, it seemed to me

xviii

PREFACE.

that I could more freely and graciously begin by choosing


a foreign paradigm than by entering upon the home-field,
and that none could be so good for this purpose as the
poetry of Great Britain, there being none so compre
hensive, and none with which myself and my readers are
more familiar. Affection, reverence, national feeling, or
some less worthy emotion, may be thought to prevent
an American from writing without prejudice of Bryant,
Longfellow, Whittier, Lowell, and the rest ; doubtless there
are considerations which sometimes render British journal
ists disinclined to review Tennyson and Browning with
that indifferent spirit which characterizes their judgment
of eminent American poets. Lastly, upon a survey of the
last forty years, I saw that what I term the Victorian
period is nearly at an end, and that no consecutive and
synthetic examination of its schools and leaders had yet
been made. This led me to go on and to complete the
present work.
It follows that these essays are not written upon a
theory. The author has no theory of poetry, and no par
ticular school to uphold. I favor a generous eclecticism,
or universalism, in Art, enjoying what is good, and believ
ing that, as in Nature, the question is not whether this
or that kind be the more excellent, but whether a work
is excellent of its kind. Certain qualities, however, distin
guish what is fine and lasting. The principles upon which
I rely may be out of fashion just now, and not readily
accepted. They are founded, nevertheless, in the Miltonic

PREFACE.

xix

canon of poetry, from which simplicity no more can be


excluded than sensuousness and passion. The spirit of
criticism is intellectual ; that of poetry (although our curi
ously reasoning generation often has forgotten it) is nor
mally the offspring of emotion, secondly, it may be, of
thought. I find that the qualities upon which I have
laid most stress, and which at once have opened the way
to commendation, are simplicity and freshness, in work
of all kinds ; and, as the basis of persistent growth, and
of greatness in a masterpiece, simplicity and spontaneity,
refined by art, exalted by imagination, and sustained by
intellectual power. Simplicity does not imply poverty of
thought, there is a strong simplicity belonging to an
intellectual age ; a clearness of thought and diction, nat
ural to true poets, whose genius is apt to be in direct
ratio with their possession of this faculty, and inversely as
their tendency to cloudiness, confusion of imagery, obscu
rity, or "hardness" of style. It may almost be said that
everything really great is marked by simplicity. The
poet's office is to reveal plainly the most delicate phases
of wisdom, passion, and beauty. Even in the world of
the ideal we must have clear imagination and language :
the more life-like the dream, the longer it will be remem
bered.
The traits, therefore, which I have deprecated earnestly
are in the first place obscurity and hardness, and these
either natural, implying defective voice and insight, or
affected, implying conceit and poor judgment; and sec

XX

PREFACE.

ondly that excess of elaborate ornament, which places


decoration above construction, until the sense of origi
nality is lost if, indeed, it ever has existed. Both ob
scurity and super-ornamentation are used insensibly to
disguise the lack of imagination, just as a weak and
florid singer hides with trills and flourishes his inability
to strike a simple, pure note, or to change without a slid
ing scale.
But among true poets of the recent schools some have
gone to the other extreme, putting the thought too far
above the art, and have neglected melody and finish alto
gether, as if despising accomplishments now so widely
diffused. This also is a fault common in an advanced
period, especially in one eminent for speculative and meta
physical research. I have not overlooked this heresy,
although steadfastly opposing meretricious efforts to attract
notice by grotesque, fantastic, and other artificial means.
If such methods prevail in an over-ripe country they should
not in our own, and I point to them as errors which
American poetry, as it gathers strength, should be able
easily to avoid. And thus seeing how poorly charlatanism
and effrontery can make up for patient, humble endeavor
and experience in art, we must discern and revere, on the
other hand, those gifts of inspiration which endow the
born poet, and without which no amount of toil and learn
ing can insure the favor of the Muses. As to the latter
requirements, the instinct of the world, that would not
recognize Bulwer and still pays tribute to Burns, is almost

PREFACE.

xxi

unerring ; as to the former, it often is for a while deceived ;


so I have found occasion to write of dilettanteism, lack of
apprenticeship, and of the assumption of those who would
clutch the laurel " with a single bound." Finally, the intel
lectual activity of our time constantly demands a reviewer's
notice ; and passion, rare in an idyllic period, must be
sought out and welcomed at every visible turn.
The spirit of the following chapters has now been in
dicated. I have made few quotations, depending on the
reader's means of acquaintance with the poetry of his
time.
In treating the abstract portion of my subject,
where some generalization has seemed requisite, I have
tried to state my meaning in brief arid open terms. Much
originality is not claimed for either manner or thought.
My effort simply has been to illustrate, through analysis
of the careers of various poets, what already is widely
understood among philosophical critics. No single sketch
has been colored to suit the author's ideas, but each poet
has been judged upon his own merits ; yet I think the
general effect to be as stated.
I trust that it may not prove a wholly thankless office,
since it certainly is not one frequently undertaken, to write
a purely critical volume, exclusively devoted to the litera
ture of another land. Criticism, like science, latterly has
found a more interested public than of old. The catholic
reviewer will not shut his eyes to the value of new modes,
but even that conventional criticism, which holds to ac
cepted canons, has its use as a counterpoise to license

xxii

PREFACE.

and bewilderment. As to the choice of field: while I


would not reassert in behalf of any verdict, least of all in
behalf of my own, that " a foreign nation is a kind cf con
temporaneous posterity," it yet may be true that from
this distance a reviewer can advantageously observe the
general aspect of British poetry, whatever minor details
may escape his eye.
In concluding this work, I wish to acknowledge my
obligations to friends who have assisted me in its revis
ion : to Professor Roswell D. Hitchcock, D. D., for val
uable hints concerning recent hymnology ; to Mr. Richard
H. Stoddard, for access to his choice collection of English
verse ; to Messrs. William J. Linton and George P. Philes,
for important data relating to the recent minor poets ;
and especially to Mr. Robert U. Johnson, of New York,
and Mr. Henry H. Clark, of Cambridge, for careful and
unstinted aid, at a time when, from prolonged illness, it
was impossible for me to verify the statistical portion of
my volume, or even to revise the proof-sheets as they
came from the press.
New York, July, 1875.

E. C. S.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

Pace
1

The Period
CHAPTER II.
Walter Savage Landor

33

CHAPTER III.
Thomas Hood. Matthew Arnold. Bryan Waller Procter .

72

CHAPTER IV.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

.114

CHAPTER V.
Alfred Tennyson

150

CHAPTER VI.
Tennyson and Theocritus

201

CHAPTER VII.
The General Choir

234
CHAPTER VIII.

The Subject continued

262

xxiv

CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.

Robert Browning

293

CHAPTER X.
Latter-Day Singers :
Robert Buchanan. Dante Gabriel Rossetti. William
Morris
342
CHAPTER XI.
Latter-Day Singers:
Algernon Charles Swinburne

Twelve Years Later: A Supplementary Review


INDEX

379

.415
485

VICTORIAN

POETS.

VICTORIAN

POETS.

CHAPTER I.
THE PERIOD.

THE main purpose of this book is to examine the


lives and productions of such British poets as
have gained reputation within the last forty years.
Incidentally, I hope to derive from the body of their
verse, so various in form and thought, and from
the record of their different experiences, correct ideas
in respect to the aim and province of the art of Poetry,
and not a few striking illustrations of the poetic life.
In reviewing the works and careers of these singers,
especially of the large number that may be classed as
minor poets, we naturally shall be reminded of a pro
cess to which M. Taine has made emphatic reference
in a history of previous English literature, and in his
analysis of the one poet selected by him to represent
the quality of recent song. This process is the insen
sible moulding of an author's life, genius, manner of
expression, by the conditions of race, circumstance, and
period, in which he is seen to be involved.
But on the other hand, and chiefly in our recognition
of the few master-spirits whose names, by common and
just agreement, hold the first places upon the list under
review, we shall observe with equal certainty that great
I
A

THE PERIOD.
poets overcome all restrictions, create their own styles,
and even may determine the lyrical character of a
period, or indicate that of one which is to succeed
them.
Among authors of less repute we therefore shall find
more than one rare and attractive poet hampered by
lack of fortune and opportunity, or by a failure to har
monize his genius with the spirit of his time. For ex
ample, several persons having the true dramatic feeling
arose, but cannot be said to have flourished, during or
just before the early portion of the era, and were over
borne by the reflective, idyllic fashion which then began
to prevail in English verse. These isolated singers
Taylor, Darley, Beddoes, Horne, and others like them
never exhibited the full measure of their natural gifts.
The time was out of keeping ; and why ? Because it
followed the lead, and listened to the more courageous
voices of still greater poets, who introduced and kept in
vogue a mode of feeling and expression to which the
dramatic method is wholly antagonistic. These suc
cessful leaders, no less sensitive than their rivals to
the feeble and affected mood which poetry then had
assumed, and equally familiar with the choicest models
of every age and literature, were more wise in select
ing the ground upon which the expression of their
own genius and the tendencies of the period could be
brought together. They persisted in their art, gathered
new audiences, and fulfilled the mission for which they
were endowed with voice, imagination, and the poet's
creative desire. This surer instinct, this energy and
success, this utterance lifted above opposing voices,
are what have distinguished poets like Tennyson, the
Brownings, Rossetti, Swinburne, from less fortunate
aspirants whose memory is cherished tenderly by our

CULTURE AND SPONTANEITY.


united guild, but who failed to reach the popular heart
or to make a significant impression upon the literature
of their own time.
It is an open question, however, whether a poet need
be conscious of the existence and bearing of the laws
and conditions under which he produces his work. It
may be a curb and detriment to his genius that he
should trouble himself about them in the least. But
this rests upon the character of his intellect and
includes a further question of the effects of culture.
Just here there is a difference between poetry and the
cognate arts of expression, since the former has some
what less to do with material processes and effects.
The freedom of the minor sculptor's, painter's, or com
poser's genius is not checked, while its scope and pre
cision are increased, by knowledge of the rules of his
calling, and of their application in different regions and
times. But in the case of the minor poet, excessive
culture, and wide acquaintance with methods and mas
terpieces, often destroy spontaneity. They shut in the
voice upon itself, and overpower and bewilder the
singer, who forgets to utter his native, characteris
tic melody, awed by the chorus and symphony of the
world's great songs. Full-throated, happy minstrels, like
Beranger or Burns, need no knowledge of thorough
bass and the historical range of composition. Their
expression is the carol of the child, the warble of the
skylark scattering music at his own sweet will. Never
theless, there is no strong imagination without vigorous
intellect, and to its penetrative and reasoning faculty
there comes a time when the laws which it has instinc
tively followed must be apparent ; and, later still, it
cannot blind itself to the favoring or adverse in
fluences of period and place. Should these forces be

The critic's
province.
Cp. " Peels
ofA merica" : pp.
2b, 223.

Aspects of
the time un
der review.

THE PERIOD.
restrictive, their baffling effect will teach the poet to
recognize and deplore them, and to endeavor, though
with wind and tide against him, to make his progress
noble and enduring.
In regard to the province of the critic there can,
however, be no question. It is at once seen to be
twofold. He must recognize and broadly observe the
local, temporal, and generic conditions under which
poetry is composed, or fail to render adequate judg
ment upon the genius of the composer. Yet there
always are cases in which poetry fairly rises above the
idealism of its day. The philosophical critic, then, in
estimating the importance of an epoch, also must pay
full consideration to the messages that it has received
from poets of the higher rank, and must take into
account the sovereign nature of a gift so independent
and spontaneous that from ancient times men have
united in looking upon it as a form of inspiration.
As we trace the course of British poetry, from a
point somewhat earlier than the beginning of the pres
ent reign, down to the close of the third quarter of
our century, we observe that at the outset of this
period the sentiment of the Byronic school had de
generated into sentimentalism, while for its passion
there had been substituted the calm of reverie and in
trospective thought. Two kinds of verse were marked
by growing excellence. The first was that of an artschool, taking its models from old English poetry and
from the delicate classicism of Landor and Keats ; the
second was of a didactic, yet elevated nature, and had
the imaginative strain of Wordsworth for its loftiest
exemplar. We see these two combining in that idyllic
method which, upon the whole, has distinguished the
recent time, and has maintained an atmosphere un

SUCCESSIVE POETIC PHASES.


favorable to the revival of high passion and dramatic
power. Nevertheless, and lastly, we observe that a new
dramatic and lyric school has arisen under this adverse
influence and brought its methods into vogue, obtain
ing the favor of a new generation, and therewith round
ing to completion the poetic cycle which I have under
taken to review.
The evolution of the art-school, partly from classicism,
partly from a renewal of early and natural English feel
ing, may be illustrated by a study of the life and relics
of Landor : first, because Landor, while an intellectual
poet, was among the most perfect of those who have
excelled in the expression of objective beauty ; again,
because, although contemporary with Keats, his career
was prolonged into the second half of our era, and
thus was a portion of its origin, progress, and matu
rity. Throughout this time, as in other eras, various
phases of metrical art have been displayed by authors
who have maintained their independence of the domi
nant mode. Mrs. Browning wins our attention, as the
first of woman-poets, endowed with the rarest order of
that subjective faculty which is the special attribute of
feminine genius. Hood, Arnold, and Procter may be
selected as prominent representatives of the several
kinds of feeling and rhythmical utterance that are no
ticeable in their verse. Elsewhere, as we look around,
we soon begin to discover the influence of the emi
nent founder and master of the composite school. The
method of Tennyson may be termed composite or idyl
lic : the former, as a process that embraces every
variety of rhythm and technical effect ; the latter, as
essentially descriptive, and resorting to external por
traiture instead of to those means by which characters
are made unconsciously to depict themselves. Other-

THE PERIOD.
wise, it is suggestive rather than plain-spoken, and
greatly relies upon surrounding accessories for the
fuller conveyance of its subtle thought. After some
comparison of the laureate with the father of Greek
idyllic verse, pointing out, meanwhile, the significant
likeness between the Alexandrian and Victorian eras,
I shall give attention to a number of those minor
poets, from whose diverse yet blended rays we can
most readily derive a general estimate of the time and
its poetic tendency. These may be partially assorted
in groups depending upon specific feeling or style ;
but doubtless many single lights will be found scat
tered between such constellations, and each shining
with his separate lustre and position. Finally, in re
counting the growth of the new dramatic and ro
mantic schools, under the leadership of Browning and
Rossetti, we shall find their characteristics united in
the verse of Swinburne, in some respects the most
notable of the poets who now, in the prime of their
creative faculties, strive to maintain the historic beauty
and eminence of England's song.
Before entering upon a citation of the poets them
selves, I wish to make what reference may be needful
to the conditions of the period. Let us see wherein it
has been marked by transition, how far it has been
critical and didactic, to what extent poetical and crea
tive. A moment's reflection will convince us that it
has witnessed a change in the conditions bearing upon
art, as important and radical as those changes, more
quickly recognized, that have affected the whole tone
of social order and philosophic thought. Our rhyth
mical expression originated in phenomenal language
and imagery, an inheritance from the past ; modern
poetry has struggled painfully, even heroically, to cast

POETRY AND SCIENCE.


this off and adjust itself to a new revelation of the
truth of things. The struggle is not yet ended, but con
tinues, and will continue, until the relations between
imagination and knowledge shall be fairly harmonized
upon a basis that will inure to the common glory of
these twin servitors of every beautiful art.

II.
It follows that, in any discussion of the recent era,
the scientific movement which has engrossed men's
thoughts, and so radically affected their spiritual and
material lives, assumes an importance equal to that of
all other forces combined. The time has been marked
by a stress of scientific iconoclasm. Its bearing upon
theology was long since perceived, and the so-called
conflict of Science with Religion is now at full height.
Its bearing upon poetry, through antagonism to the
traditional basis of poetic diction, imagery, and thought,
has been less distinctly stated. The stress has been
vaguely felt by the poets themselves, but they are not
given to formulating their sensations in the polemical
manner of those trained logicians, the churchmen,
and the attitude of the latter has so occupied our re
gard that few have paused to consider the real cause
of the technical excellence and spiritual barrenness
common in the modern arts of letters and design.
Yet it is impossible, when we once set about it, to
look over the field of late English verse, and not to
see a question of the relations between Poetry and
Science pressing for consideration at every turn and
outpost.
Scientific iconoclasm is here mentioned simply as an
existing force : not as one to be deplored, for I have

THE PERIOD.
faith that it will in the end lead to new and fairer
manifestations of the immortal Muse. However irre
pressible the conflict between accepted theologies and
the spirit of investigation, however numerous the tra
ditions of faith that yield to the advances of knowledge,
there is no such inherent antagonism between science
and poetry. In fact, the new light of truth is no more
at war with religious aspiration than with poetic feel
ing, but in either case with the ancient fables and
follies of expression which these sentiments respec
tively have cherished. A sense of this hostility has
oppressed, I say, the singers clinging to forms of
beauty, which long remain the dearest, because loved
the first. Their early instinct of resistance is manifest
in the following sonnet by a poet who saw only the
beginning of the new dispensation:
" Science ! true daughter of old Time thou art,
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities ?
How should he love thee ? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing ?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car,
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star ?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind-tree ? "
Had this youth lived to the present hour, he would
begin, I think, to discern that Poetry herself is strug
gling to be free from the old and to enter upon the
new, to cast off a weight of precedent and phenom
enal imagery and avail herself of the more profound

METHOD OF THE POET.


suggestion and more resplendent beauty of discovered
truth ; and he would not forbid her to light the flames
of her imagination at the torch which Science carries
with a strong and forward-beckoning hand.
While, therefore,
there can be no irreconcilable war
i*
fare between poetry and science, we discover that a
temporary struggle is under way, and has seriously
embarrassed the poets of the era. Let us observe the
operation of this contest, or, rather, of this enforced
transition to the method of the future.
There are two ways of regarding natural objects :
first, as they appear to the bodily eye and to the
normal, untutored imagination ; second, as we know
they actually are, having sought out the truth of
their phenomena, the laws which underlie their beauty
or repulsiveness. The former, purely empirical, hith
erto has been the simple and poetic function of art;
the latter is that of reason, scientifically and radically
informed. The one is Homeric, the other Baconian
Up to Coleridge's time, therefore, his definition of
poetry, that it is the antithesis of science, though not
complete, was true as far as it extended. Let us see
how the ideals of an imaginative, primitive race, differ
from those of the children of knowledge, who make
up our later generations.
The most familiar example will be found the best.
Look at the antique spirit as partially revived by a
painter of the seventeenth century. The Aurora fresco
in the Rospigliosi palace expresses the manner in
which it once was perfectly natural to observe the
perpetual, splendid phenomena of breaking day. Sun
rise was the instant presence of joyous, effulgent deity.
A pagan saw the morning as Guido has painted it.
The Sun-God in very truth was urging on his fiery-

A temporary
conflict.

The poetic
and rational
methods ex
amined and

i. Thepoetic, orphe
nomenal
mode.

10

THE PERIOD.
footed steeds. The clouds were his pathway ; the
early morning Hour was scattering in advance flow
ers of infinite prismatic hues, and her blooming,
radiant sisters were floating in air around Apollo's
chariot ; the earth was roseate with celestial light ; the
blue sea laughed beyond. Swiftly ascending Heaven's
archway the retinue swept on ; all was real, exuberant
life and gladness ; the gods were thus in waiting upon
humanity, and men were the progeny of the gods. The
elements of the Hellenic idealism, so often cited, are
readily understood. It appeared in the blithesome
imagery of a race that felt the pulses of youth, with no
dogmas of the past to thicken its current and few ana
lytical speculations to perturb it. Youth, health, and
simplicity of life brought men to accept and inform
after their own longings the outward phenomena of
natural things. Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
I refer to the antique feeling (as I might to that of
the pastoral Hebraic age), not as to the exponent of
a period superior to our own, or comparable with it
in knowledge, comfort, grasp of all that enhances the
average of human welfare, but as that of a poetical
era, charged with what has ever, until now, made the
excellence of such times, an era when gifted poets
would find themselves in an atmosphere favoring the
production of elevated poetry, and of poetry especially
among the forms of art, since this has seemed more
independent
But there are
of aid
other
from
types
material
of thescience
poetical
than
age.the Pass
rest.
from the simple and harmonious ideals of classicism
to the romantic Gothic era, whose genius was con
glomerate of old and new, and the myths of many
ages and countries, but still fancy-free, or subject only
to a pretended science as crude and wanton as the

REALISM OF THE PRESENT TIME.

11

fancy itself ; whose imagination was excited by chival


rous codes of honor, brave achievement, and the recur
rent chances and marvels of new discovery. Such, for
example, the Elizabethan period of our own literature ;
such the great Italian period from which it drew its
forms. There was a certain largeness of mechanical
achievement, and a mass of theological inquiry, in the
time of Dante, Boccaccio, and Petrarch, and in that
of Tasso and Ariosto, but all subject to the influence
of superstition and romance. The world was only
half discovered; men's fancy was constantly on the
alert ; nothing commonplace held the mind ; even
the lives and ventures of merchants had a wealth of
mystery, strangeness, and speculation about them,
which might well make an Antonio and a Sebastian
the personages of Shakespeare's and Fletcher's plays.
Each part of the globe was a phantasmal or fairy land
to the inhabitants of other parts. A traveller was a
marked man. Somewhere in Asia was the Great Khan ;
later, in America, were cities of Manoa paved with
gold. Nothing was extraordinary, or, rather, everything
was so. The people fed on the material of poetry,
and wove laurel-wreaths for those who made their
song.
Our own time, so eminently scientific, so devoted to The modern
spirit.
in
investigation
the laws ofofforce
universal
and matter,
truth, has
thatfound
the poetic
such wonders
bearing
of their phenomena has seemed of transient worth;
enjoyment and excitation of the intellect through the
acquisition of knowledge are valued more and more.
Thinkers become unduly impressed with the relative
unimportance of man and his conceptions. Our first
knowledge of the amazing revelations of astronomy
which I take as a most impressive type of the cognate

12

THE PERIOD.
sciences tends to repress self-assertion, and to make
one content with accepting quietly his little share of
life and action. In earlier eras of this kind, discov
ery and invention occupied men's minds until, fully
satiated, they longed for mental rest and a return to a
play of heart and fancy. Too much wisdom seemed
folly indeed ; dance and song and pastoral romance
resumed their sway; the harpers harped anew, and
from the truer life and knowledge scientifically gained
broke forth new blossoms of poetic art. But our own
period has no exact prototype. It is advanced in
civilization ; but the time of Pericles, though also
exhibiting a modern refinement, was one of scientific
ignorance. There was, as we have seen, a mediaeval
spirit of scientific inquiry, but almost wholly guided
by superstition. Even nature's laws were compelled
to bow to church fanaticism ; experiments were looked
upon with distrust, or conducted in secrecy ; and po
etry, at least in respect to its cherished language and
ideals, had no occasion to take alarm.
But in the nineteenth century, science, freedom of
thought, refinement, and material progress have moved
along together. The modern student often has been
so narrowed by his investigations as to be more unjust
to the poet than the latter was of old to the philoso
pher. Art has seemed mere pastime and amusement,
as once it seemed the devil's frippery and seduction
to the ascetic soul of the Puritan, aglow with the
gloomy or rapturous mysteries of his theology. Also
by the multitude whom the practical results of science
at last have thoroughly won over, and who now are
impelled by more than Roman ambition to girdle the
earth with engineering and conquer the elements them
selves, neither the songsters nor the metaphysicians,

HUXLEY ON EDUCATION.
but the physical investigators and men of action, are
held to be the world's great men. The De Lesseps,
Fields, Barings, and Vanderbilts, no less than Lyell,
Darwin, and Agassiz, wear the bay-leaves of to-day.
Religion and theology, also, are subjected to analysis
and the universal tests, and at last the divine and the
poet, traditionally at loggerheads, have a common bond
of suffering, a union of toleration or half-disguised
contempt. Eating together at the side-tables, neither is
adequately consoled by reflecting that the other is no
more to be envied than himself. The poet's hold upon
the youthful mind and sentimental popular emotion
has also measurably relaxed ; for a learned professor,
who has spoken of poetic expression as "sensual
caterwauling," and possibly regards the gratification of
the aesthetic perceptions as of little worth, grossly un
derrated his position when he said that, " at present,
education is almost entirely devoted to the cultivation
of the power of expression and of the sense of literary
beauty." The truth is that our school-girls and spin
sters wander down the lanes with Darwin, Huxley, and
Spencer under their arms ; or if they carry Tennyson,
Longfellow, and Morris, read them in the light of
spectrum analysis, or test them by the economics of
Mill and Bain. The very tendency of modern poetry
to wreak its thoughts upon expression, of which Huxley
so complains, naturally follows the iconoclastic over
throw of its cherished ideals, confining it to skilful
utilization of the laws of form and melody. Ay, even
the poets, with their intensely sympathetic natures,
have caught the spirit of the age, and pronounce the
verdict against themselves. One of them envies his
early comrade, who forsook art to follow learning,
and thus in age addresses him :

13

THE PERIOD.
" Alike we loved
The muses' haunts, and all our fancies moved
To measures of old song. How since that day
Our feet have parted from the path that lay
So fair before us ! Rich, from life-long search
Of truth, within thy Academic porch
Thou sittest now, lord of a realm of fact,
Thy servitors the sciences exact ;
Still listening, with thy hand on Nature's keys,
To hear the Samian's spheral harmonies
And rhythm of law
And if perchance too late I linger where
The flowers have ceased to blow, and trees are bare,
Thou, wiser in thy choice, will scarcely blame
The friend who shields his folly with thy name."
The more intellectual will confess to you that they
weary less of a new essay by Proctor or Tyndall than
of the latest admirable poem; that, overpowered in
the brilliant presence of scientific discovery, their own
conceptions seem less dazzling. A thirst for more
facts grows upon them ; they throw aside their lyres
and renew the fascinating study, forgetful that the
inspiration of Plato, Shakespeare, and other poets of
old, often foreshadowed the glory of these revelations,
and neglecting to chant in turn the transcendent pos
sibilities of eras yet to come. Science, the modern
Circe, beguiles them from their voyage to the Hesperides, and transforms them into her voiceless devotees.
Every period, however original and creative, has a
transitional aspect in its relation to the years before
and after. In scientific iconoclasm, then, we have the
most important of the symptoms which mark the recent
era as a transition period, and presently shall observe
features in the structure and composition of its po
etry which justify us in thus ranking it. The Victorian

METHOD OF THE PHILOSOPHER.


poets have flourished in an equatorial region of com
mon-sense and demonstrable knowledge. Thought has
outlived its childhood, yet has not reached a growth
from which experience and reason lead to visions
more radiant than the early intuitions. The zone of
youthful fancy, excited by unquestioning acceptance
of outward phenomena, is now well passed ; the zone
of cultured imagination is still beyond us. At present,
skepticism, analysis, scientific conquest, realism, scornI ful unrest. Apollo has left the heavens. The modern
I child knows more than the sage of antiquity.
To us the Sun is a material, flaming orb, around
which revolves this dark, inferior planet, obedient to
central and centrifugal forces. We know that no celes
tial flowers bestrew his apparent pathway ; that all this
iridescence is but the refraction of white light through
the mists of the upper skies. Let me in advance dis
avow regret for the present, or desire to recall the
past : I simply recognize a condition which was in
evitable and in the order of growth to better things.
" Much of what we call sublime," said Landor, " is
only the residue of infancy, and the worst of it." I
cannot disbelieve the words of a latter-day writer, that,
" so far from being unfriendly to the poetic imagina
tion, science will breathe into it a higher exaltation."
In my chapter on Tennyson I shall have occasion to
cite the language of Wordsworth, who, with prophetic
vision, depicted an era when the poet and the man
of science shall find their missions harmonious and
united. But the change is none the less severe, and
the period has been indeed trying for the votaries of
song. True, that already, in our glimmerings of the
source and motion of the " offspring of Heaven first
born," in our partial knowledge of the meaning of

16

THE PERIOD.
appearances, we can use this meaning for the lan
guage and basis of poetical works ; but recent poets
have had to contend with the fact that, while men
are instructed out of the early phenomenal faith, their
recognition of scientific truth has not yet become that
second nature which can replace it. The poet of to
day, burdened with his new wisdom, represents the
contemporary treatment when he says,
" There sinks the nebulous star we call the Sun,
If that hypothesis of theirs be sound " ;
but it is by a prosaic effort that he recalls a fact at
variance with the impression of his own childhood, sub
duing his fancy to his judgment and to the soirit of the
time. Let myths go by, and it still remain^ that every
child is a natural Ptolemaist, who must be educated to
the Copernican system, and his untutored notions gen
erally are as far from the truth with regard to other
physical phenomena.
The characteristics of the middle portion of the
nineteenth century have been so perplexing, that it is
but natural the elder generation among us should ex
claim, " Where is it now, the glory and the dream ? "
While other arts must change and change, the pure
office of poetry is ever to idealize and prophesy of the
unknown ; and its lovers, forgetting that Nature is lim
itless in her works and transitions, mourn that so
much having been discovered, robbed of its glamour,
and reduced to prosaic fact the poet's ancient office
is at last put by. Let them take fresh heart, recalling
the Master's avowal that Nature's " book of secrecy "
is infinite ; let them note what spiritual and material
spheres are yet untrod ; rejoicing over the past rather
than hopeless of future achievement, let them examine

THE LAW OF PROGRESS.


with me the disenchanting process which has made
their own time a turbulent, unrestful interval of tran
sition from that which was to that which shall be ; a
time when, more than his perpetual wont, the poet
looks "before and after, and pines for what is not."
As in chemical physics, first sublimation, then crys
tallization, then the sure and firm-set earth beneath
our feet; so in human progress, first the ethereal fan
tasy of the poet, then discovery by experience and
induction, bringing us to what is deemed scientific,
prosaic knowledge of objects and their laws. Thus in
the earlier periods, when poets composed empirically,
the rarest minds welcomed and honored their produc
tions in the same spirit. But now, if they work in this
way, as many are still fain, it must be for the tender
heart of women and the delight of youths, since the
fitter audience of thinkers, the most elevated and
eager spirits, no longer find sustenance in such empty
magician's food. With regard to the so il of men and
things, they still give rein to fancy and empiricism,
for that is still unknown. Hence the new phases of
psychical poetry, which formerly repelled the healthyminded by its morbid cast. But touching' material phe
nomena they no longer accept, even for its beauty, the
language of myth and tradition ; they know better ; the
glory may remain, but verily the dream has passed
away.
A skeptical period may call forth heroic elements of
self-devotion ; criticism is endured and even courted,
and the vulnerable point of an inherited faith is surely
found. Earnest minds sadly but manfully give up their
ancestral traditions, and refuse to seek repose in any
creed that cannot undergo the extreme test. But an
age of distrust, however stoical and brave, rarely has

17

Progress,
and its lau

Features of
an investi
gatingpe
riod.

18

THE PERIOD.
'lI
been favorable to high and creative art. Great pro
ductions usually have been adjusted to the formulas
of some national or world-wide faith, and its common
atmosphere pervades them. The Iliad is subject to
the Hellenic mythology, whose gods and heroes are
its projectors and sustainers. The Divine Comedy,
Paradise Lost, the most imaginative poems, the great
est dramas, each, as it comes to mind, seems, like
the most renowned and glorious paintings, to have
been the product of an age of faith, however sharply
minor sects may have contended within the limits of
the general belief. The want of such a belief often
has led to undue realism, or to inertness on the part
of the best intellects, and in many other ways has
checked the creative impulse, the joyous ardor of the
visionary and poet.
To make another statement of the old position of
art in relation to knowledge, we may say that until a
recent date the imagination, paradoxical as it may
seem, has been most heightened and sustained by the
contemplation of natural objects, raiher as they seem to
be than as we know they are. For to the pure and
absorbed spirit it is the ideal only that seems real ;
as a lover adores the image and simulacrum of his
mistress, pictured to his inner consciousness, more than
the very self and substance of her being. Thus Keats,
the English apprentice, surrounded himself with all
Olympus's hierarchy, and breathed the freshness of
Thessalian forest-winds. But for an instance of per
fect substitution of the seeming for the true, commend
me to the passion and rhapsody of Heine, who on the
last days of his outdoor life, blind to the loving sym
pathy of the actual men and women around him, falls
smitten and helpless at the feet of the Venus of Milo,

AN APPROACHING HARMONY.
his loved ideal beauty, sees her looking upon him with
divine pity and yearning, and hears her words, spoken
o"hly for his ear, " Dost thou not see that I have no
edge
arms, ofandunreality
thereforewas
cannot
present
helpto thee?"
his reason,
The but
knowl
the
high poetic
solation
as soul
onlydisdained
poets know.
it, andSoreceived
also Blake,
such con
that
sublime visionary, tells us : "I assert for myself that
I do not behold the outward creation, and that to me
it is hindrance and not action. ' What ! ' it will be
questioned, 'when the sun rises, do you not see a
disk of fire, somewhat like a guinea ? ' ' O no, no ! I
see an innumerable company of the heavenly host,
crying, " Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty ! "
I question not my corporeal eye, any more than I
would question a window concerning a sight. I look
through it, and not with it.'"
There are passages in modern poetry that seem to
forebode the approaching harmony of Poetry and Sci
ence ; the essays of Tyndall and Spencer are, the
question of form left out, poems in themselves ; and
there are both philosophers and poets who feel that
no absolute antagonism can exist between them. Dr.
Adolphe Wurtz, in a paper before the French Associa
tion, declared that the mission of science is to struggle
against the unknown, while in letters it is enough to
give an expression, and in art a body, to the concep
tions of the mind or the beauties of nature. To this
we may add that science kindles the imagination with
the new conceptions and new beauties which it has
wrested from the unknown, and thus becomes the
ally of poetry. The latter, in turn, is often the herald
of science, through what is termed the intuition of the
Doet. Whether by means of some occult revelation,

19

20

THE PERIOD.

Cfi. " Poets or by a feminine process of quick reasoning that ap


ofA mertea": pp. proaches instinct, or, again, by his subtile power to
53-155.
" see into the life of things," the poet foretokens th,e
263.
discoveries of the man of science in the material world
and concerning the laws of mind and being. A mod
ern philosopher goes back to Lucretius for the basis
of the latest theory of matter. Before the general ac
knowledgment of the vibratory transmission of light,
and of the doctrine of the correlation of forces, Goethe
made Mephistopheles avow that
" Light, howe'er it weaves,
Still, fettered, unto bodies cleaves :
It flows from bodies, bodies beautifies ;
By bodies is its course impeded."
In " Death's Jest-Book," that weird tragedy composed
by a poet who preceded Darwin, we find the idea of
evolution carried to its full extreme :
" I have a bit of Fiat in my soul,
And can myself create my little world.
Had I been born a four-legged child, methinks
I might have found the steps from dog to man,
And crept into his nature."
The speaker then hints at the development of mind
from inert matter, through the crystal, through the
organic plant, and so on through successive grades
of animal life culminating with the intellectual man.
Even then he adds,
" Have patience but a little, and keep still,
I '11 find means, by and by, of flying higher."
Beddoes, it is true, was a learned investigator, and so
was Goethe. But such poets, observing the merest
germs of scientific discovery, foresee their ultimate
possibilities, and thus suggest and anticipate the
empirical confirmation of their truth. Finally, the

BOTH TRANSITIONAL AND CREATIVE.


poet must always have a separate and independent
province, for the spirit of Nature is best revealed by
an expression of her phenomena and not by analysis of
her processes. Visible beauty exalts our emotions far
more than a dissection of the wondrous and intricate
,/system beneath it. The sight of a star or of a flower,
or the story of a single noble action, touches our
humanity more nearly than the greatest discovery or
invention, and does the soul more good.
Poetry will not be able to fully avail herself of the
aid of Science, until her votaries shall cease to be
dazed by the possession of a new sense. Our horizon
is now so extended that a thousand novel and sublime
objects confuse us: we still have to become wonted to
their aspects, proportions, distances, and relations to
one another. We are placed suddenly, as it were, in a
foreign world, whose spiritual significance is but dimly
understood. At last a clearer vision and riper faith
Will come to us, and with them a fresh inspiration,
expressing itself in new symbols, new imagery and
beauty, suggested by the fuller truth. Awaiting this,
it is our present office to see in what manner the
quality of the intervening period has been impressed
upon the living pages of its written song.

21
The poet in
undisturbed
possession of
one domain.

A compute
understand'
ing not yet
possible.

Cp. " Poets


of A nierica " : pp.
6, 27.

III.
While in one sense the recent era, and with more
point than usual, may be called a transition period, it
is found to possess, in no less degree than eras that
have witnessed smaller changes, a character and his
tory of its own. Such a period may be negative, or
composite, in the value of its art-productions. The
dreary interval between the times of Milton and Cow-

The recent
period both
transitional
and crea
tive.

22

The period
transitional
in thought
andfeeling;

creative,
chiefly in
style and
form. Cp.
"Poets of
Amer
ica " pp.
459, 460.

THE PERIOD.
per was of the former non-creative type. An eclipse
of imagination prevailed and seemed to chill and be
numb the poets. They tried to plod along in the wellworn paths, but, like men with bandaged eyes, went
astray without perceiving it. Substituting pedantry
for emotion, and still harping on the old myths, they
reduced them to vapid, artificial unreality, not having
the faculty of reviving their beauty by new forms of
expression. Of the art to conceal art none save a
few like Collins and Goldsmith had the slightest in
stinct or control. As for passion, that was completely
extinct. At last the soul of a later generation de
manded the return to natural beauty, and the heart
clamored for pulsation and utterance: Cowper, Burns,
Wordsworth, Byron, and their great contemporaries,
arose, and with them a genuine creative literature, of
which the poetry strove to express the spirit of nature
and the emotions of the heart, subtile, essential ele
ments, in which no amount of scientific environment
could limit the poet's restless explorations.
Our recent transition period ensued, but, in its com
posite aspect, how different from that to which I have
referred ! The change which has been going on during
this time pertains to imaginative thought and feeling ;
the specific excellence which characterizes its poetry
is that of form and structure. In technical finish and
variety the period has been so advanced that an ex
amination of it should prove most instructive to lovers)
of the arts. For this reason, much of the criticism
in the following pages will be more technical than is
common in a work of this scope ; nor can it be other
wise, and adequately recognize the distinctive emi
nence of the time. The poets have been generously
endowed at birth, and who shall say that they have

JOURNALISM AND PROSE ROMANCE.


not fulfilled their mission to the attainable extent?
When not creative, their genius has been eclectic and
refining. Doubtless the time has displayed the inva
riable characteristics of such periods. In fact, there
never were more outlets to the imagination, serving
to distract public attention from the efforts of the
poets, than are afforded in this age of prose-romance
and journalism. It has been a learned and scholarly
period ; writers have busied themselves with enjoying
and annotating the great works of the past; criticism
has predominated, but how exact and catholic! How
searching the tests by which tradition and authority
have been tried ; how high the standard of excellence
in art; how intolerant the healthy spirit of the last
thirty years toward cant and melodramatic affectation ;
how vigorous the crusade against sham ! In all this
we discern the remaining features which, though less
radical in their importance than the scientific revolu
tion,
sition,have
andmarked
as composite
the Victorian
in the period
thoughtasand
one structure
of tran^
of its poetic art.
Besides the restrictions to which the poets have been
subjected by the triumphs of the journalists and novelwriters, their enthusiasm also is checked by the mod
ern dislike of emotional outgivings and display. This
aversion naturally results from the peace, security, and
ultra-comfortableness of the English people. It has
been a time of repose and luxury, a felicitous Saturnian era, when all rare things that poets dream of are
close at hand. Fulfilment has stilled the voice of
1 prophecy. We see disease averted, life prolonged and
j increasing in average duration, the masses clothed and
housed, vice punished, virtue rewarded, the landscape
beautiful with the handiwork of culture and thrift.

23

24

THE PERIOD.
Granted : but in most countries advanced to the front
of modern refinement, the dominant spirit has been
antagonistic to the production of great and lasting
poetry, and of this above other arts. For it is the
passion of song that makes it lofty and enduring, and
the snows of Hecla have overlaid human passion in
English common life during most of the Victorian age.
I am not deploring the so-called materialism of our
century, for this may be more heroic and beneficial
to mankind than the idealism of the past. Neverthe
less, and without magnifying the poet's office, it is fair
to assume that, although a poetical era may not be best
for the contemporary world, it is well for a poet to be
born in such an era, and not ill for literature that he
was so born.
Having thus gone beyond the zone of idealism and
the morning halo of impulsive deed and speech, we
have reached the noonday of common-sense, breed
ing, facts as they are. Men do not mouth it in the
grand manner, for the world has no patience to hear
them, and deems them stagey or affected. Human
emotions are the same, but modern training tones us
down to that impassibility wherein the thoroughbred
Christian woman has been said to rival the Indian
squaw; madmen are not, as of old, thought to be in
spired ; eccentricity bores us ; and poets, who should
be prophets, are loath to boldly dare and differ. Men's
hearts beat on forever, but Thackeray's Englishmen are
ashamed to acknowledge it at their meetings and part
ings. The Platonists taught that the body should be
despised ; we quietly ignore the heart and soul. The
time is off-hand, chaffy, and must be taken in its mood.
A point was very fairly made by " Shakespeare's
Scholar," in his essay on "The Play of the Period,"

ADVANCE IN POETRY AS AN ART.


that the latter days have been unfavorable to strong
dramatic verse, the highest form of poetry, and the
surest mark of a true poetical era. The modern Eng' lish have not been devoted to intense heroic feeling :
whether above or below it, who shall say? but cer\tainly not within it. The novel is their drama; true,
jbut chiefly the photographic novel of conventional life ;
"others have obtained a hearing slowly, by accident, or
by sheer force of genius. They subject their tears to
analysis, but do not care for tragic rage; avoiding
high excitements as carefully as Septimius Felton in
his effort to perpetuate life, they distribute their passion
in a hundred petty emotions, and rather than be exalted
are content with the usufruct of the five external wits.
Domestic peace and comfort have resulted in absence
of enthusiasm, and the rise and prolongation of an
idyllic school in art. Adventure is the English amuse
ment, not a mode of action ; but the converse of this
was true in the days of Raleigh, Drake, Sidney, and
Richard Grenville. Not that England is wholly utili
tarian, "domestic, student, sensualist," as has been
charged, but she has well defined and studied the sci
ence of society. All this the Victorian poets have had
to contend with as poets, or adapt themselves to as
clever artists, and, above all, as men of their time.
Lastly, however, we find that the structural, artistic
phases of modern English poetry, in scorn of the stilted
conventionalism of the eighteenth century, have been
of the most composite range, variety, and perfection.
Of course the natural forms were long since discovered,
but lyrists have learned that combinations are endless,
so that new styles, if not new orders, are constantly
brought out. In the ultra-critical spirit of the time,
they enhance the strength and beauty of their meas-

25

Great ad
vance in
poetry as an
art.

26

THE PERIOD.
ures by every feasible process, and the careful adap
tation of form to theme. This is an excellence not
to be underestimated; for if, as Huxley asserts, "ex
pression is not valuable for its own sake," it is at least
the wedded body of inspiration, employing the poet's
keenest sensibilities, and lending such value to thought
as the cutting of a diamond adds to the rugged stone.
Never was the technique of poetry so well understood
as since the time of Keats and the rise of Tennyson
and his school. The best models are selected by the
song-writers, the tale-tellers, the preachers in verse ;
and a neophyte of to-day would disdain the triteness
and crudeness of the master-workmen of fifty years ago.
The greater number, instead of restricting themselves
to a specialty, range over and include all departments
of their art, and are lyrists, balladists, and idyllists by
turn, achieving excellence in every direction except the
dramatic, which indeed but few venture upon. Modern
oetry, in short, has been as composite as modern
architecture ; and if, as in the case of the latter, gro
tesque and tawdry combinations abound, there also are
many strong and graceful structures, which excel those
of former periods in richness and harmony of adorn
ment. The rhythm of every dainty lyrical inspiration
which heralded the morning of English minstrelsy has
been caught and adapted by the song-writers, all of
whom, from Barry Cornwall and Hood to Kingsley
and Jean Ingelow, have new arrangements and effects
of their own. The extreme of word-music and wordpainting has been attained, together with a peculiar
condensation in imagery and thought ; so that, whereas
the poets of the last era, for all their strength of wing,
occupied whole passages with a single image, their
more refined successors discover its essential quality

TO WHAT EXTENT REFLECTED IN ART.


(somewhat as chemists embody the active principle
of a plant in the crystalline salt), and express it by a
single adjective or epithet. If " the light that gilds "
our recent English poetry be "the light of sunset,"
it is indeed beautiful with all prismatic hues, and its
lustres are often as attractive in themselves as for
the truth and beauty which they serve to illumine.
So far as progress is a change from the simple to the
complex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous,
we may hold that an advance is making in English art.
But a period of transition is also one of doubt and
turbulence ; one whose characteristics it is especially
requisite to bear in mind, in order to obtain a true
appreciation of the leading poets who represent it.
For we must consider an artist's good or ill fortune,
his struggles and temptations, his aids and encourage
ments ; remembering that the most important art of
any period is that which most nearly illustrates its
manners, thoughts, and emotions in imaginative lan
guage or form. Through his sensitive organization the
poet is exquisitely affected by the spirit of his time ;
and, to render his work of future moment, seeks to
reflect that spirit, or confines himself to expression of
the spiritual experiences common to all ages and all
mankind. Mr. Emerson, in his search for the under
lying principle of things, finds it a defect even in
Homer and Milton, that their works are clogged with
restrictions of times, personages, and places. Yet these
are the world's great names; it has no greater. The
potent allegory of their poems comes nearer to us than
the abstract Shastras. Their personages and places
are but the media through which the Protean forms
of nature are set forth. The statement of unmixed
thought and beauty has not been the splendor of the

27

28

Adverse in
finance of
the recent
era upon the
minorpoets.

Cj>. "Poets
ofAmer
ica " : ff.
458-461.

THE PERIOD.
masters. And while it is true that nature and history
are the poet's workshop, and all material his property,
the studies and reproductions of foreign or antique
models, except as practice-work, are of less value than
what he can show or say of his own time.
Hence it is of the highest importance to the poet
that he should live in a sympathetic, or co-operative, if
not heroic period. In studying the minor poets, we
see with especial clearness the adverse influences of a
transition era, composite though it be. A likeness of
manner and language is common to the Elizabethan
writers, various as were their themes and natural gifts.
The same is apparent in the Cromwellian period with
regard to Marvell, Shirley, and their contemporaries.
But now, as if in despair of finding new themes to suit
their respective talents, yet driven on to expression,
we discern the Victorian poets, one copying the re
frains and legendary feeling of illuminated missals and
black-letter lays ; another recasting the most enchant
ing and famous romances of Christendom in delicious
language and measures caught from Chaucer himself ;
others adopting the quaint religious manner of Her
bert and Vaughan ; a host essaying new and conscien
tious presentations of the undying beauty of Greek
mythologic lore. We see them dallying with sweet
sense and sound, until our taste for melody and color
is more than surfeited. The language which Henry
Taylor applied to the poets of a former generation
seems even more appropriate with respect to these
artists. They, too, are characterized " by a profusion
of imagery, by force and beauty of language, and by
a versification peculiarly easy and adroit
But
from this undoubted indulgence in the mere luxuries
of poetry, has there not ensued a want of adequate ap

STRUGGLES OF THE MINOR POETS.


preciation for its intellectual and immortal part?
They wanted, in the first place, subject-matter. A feel
ing came more easily to them than a reflection, and
j an image was always at hand when a thought was not
forthcoming." It is but just to say that the recent
poets are not so wanting in reflection as in themes
and essential purpose. These defects many have
striven to hide by excessive finish and ornamentation.
Conscious of this, a few, with a spasmodic effort to
be original, break away in disdain of all art, palming
off a " saucy roughness " for strength, and coarseness
for vigor ; and even this return to chaos wins the
favor of many who, from very sickness of over-refine
ment, pass to the other extreme, and welcome the
meaner work for a time because it is a change. The
effect of novelty gives every fashion a temporary
hold ; but the calmer vision looks above and along
the succession of modes, and seeks what is in itself
ennobling; and every disguise of dilettanteism, aris
tocratic or democratic, whether it struts in the rags
of Autolycus, or steals the robe of Prospero and apes
his majestic mien, must ultimately fall away. In the
search for a worthy theme, more than one of the poets
to whom I refer has, by a tour de force, allied himself to
some heroic mission of the day. On the other hand,
honest agitators have been moved, by passionate zeal
for their several causes, to outbursts of rhythmical
\ expression. In most cases the lyrics of either class
have been rhetorical and eloquent rather than truly
poetical. Finally, in the wide diffusion of a partial
culture, the Victorian period has been noteworthy for
the multitudes of its tolerable poets. It has been a
time of English minnesingers, hosts of them chanting
"the old eternal song."

29

30

THE PERIOD.
But the poets of such a period are like a collection
of trout in water that has become stagnant or turbid.
The graceful smaller fry, unconscious that the real
difficulty is in the atmosphere about them, one after
another yield to it and lose their color, flavor, and
elastic life. But the few noble masters of the pool
adapt themselves to the new condition, or resist it
altogether, and abide till the disorder of the waters
is assuaged. Reviewing the poetic genius of the clos
ing era, we find one strong spirit maintaining an in
dependent beauty and vigor through successive gen
erations, composing the rarest prose and poetry with
slight regard to temporal mode or hearing, a man
neither of nor for an age, .. who has but lately passed
away. Another, of a different cast, the acknowledged
master of the composite school, has reflected his own
period by adapting his poems to its landscape, man
ners, and speculation, with such union of strength and
varied elegance as even English literature has seldom
displayed. We find a woman an inspired singer, if
there ever was one all fire and air, her song and soul
alike devoted to liberty, aspiration, and ethereal love.
A poet, her masculine complement, whose name is rich
with the added glory of her renown, represents the
antiquity of his race by study of mediaeval themes, and
exhibits to the modern lover, noble, statesman, thinker,
priest, their prototypes in ages long gone by ; he con
stantly exalts passion above reason, while reasoning
himself, withal, in the too curious fashion of the
present day; again, he is the exponent of what dra
matic spirit is still left to England, that of psycho
logical analysis, which turns the human heart inside
out, judging it not from outward action, in the manner
of the early, simply objective masters of the stage.

RECENT BRITISH TASTE.


Youngest and latest, we find a phenomenal genius,
the extreme product of the time, carrying its artistic
and spiritual features to that excess which foretokens
exhaustion ; possessed of unprecedented control over
the rhythm and assonance of English poetry; in the
purpose and structure of his early verse to be studied
as a force of expression carried to its furthest limits,
but in his mature, dramatic work exhibiting signs of
a reaction or transformation which surely is even now
at hand.
For that the years of transition are near an end,
and that, in England and America, a creative poetic
literature, adapted to the new order of thought and
the new aspirations of humanity, will speedily grow
into form, I believe to be evident wherever our com
mon tongue is the language of imaginative expres
sion. The idyllic philosophy in which Wordsworth
took refuge from the cant and melodrama of his
predecessors has fulfilled its immediate mission ; the
art which was born with Keats, and found its perfect
work in Tennyson, already seems faultily faultless and
over-refined. A craving for more dramatic, sponta
neous utterance is prevalent with the new generation.
There is an instinct that to interpret the hearts and
souls of men and women is the poet's highest func
tion ; a disposition to throw aside precedents, to
study life, dialect, and feeling, as our painters study
landscape, out of doors and at first hand. Con
sidered as the floating land-drift of a new possession,
even careless and faulty work after this method is
eagerly received ; although in England, so surfeited of
the past and filled with vague desire, the faculty to
discriminate between the richer and poorer fabric
seems blunted and sensational ; experimental novel-

31

A nevo tits'
pensation.

The
dramatic
instinct
revived.

British taste
subordinate
to love 0f
novelty.

32

THE PERIOD.
ties are set above the most admirable compositions
in a manner already familiar ; just as an uncouth carv
ing or piece of foreign lacquer-work is more prized
than an exquisite specimen of domestic art, because it
is strange and breathes some unknown, spicy fragrance
of a new-found clime. The transition period, doubt
less, will be prolonged by the ceaseless progress of
the scientific revolution, occupying men's imaginations
and constantly readjusting the basis of language and
illustration. Erelong some new Lucretius may come
to reinterpret the nature of things, confirming many
of the ancient prophecies, and substituting for the
wonder of the remainder the still more wondrous tes
timony of the lens, the laboratory, and the millennial
rocks. The old men of the Jewish captivity wept with
a loud voice when they saw the foundations of the
new temple, because its glory in their eyes, in com
parison with that builded by Solomon, was as nothing ;
but the prophet assured them that the Desire of all
nations should come, and that the glory of the latter
house should be greater than of the former. But I do
not endeavor to anticipate the future of English song.
It may be lowlier or loftier than now, but certainly
it will show a change, and my faith in the reality
of progress is broad enough to include the field of
poetic art.

WALTER
CHAPTER
SAVAGE LANDOR.
II.

LISTENING to the concert of modern song, a


critical ear detects the notes of one voice which
possesses a distinct quality and is always at its owner's
command. Landor was never mastered by his period,
though still in harmony with it ; in short, he was not
I a discordant, but an independent, singer. He was the
pioneer of the late English school ; and among recent
poets, though far from being the greatest in achieve
ment, was the most self-reliant, the most versatile, and
one of the most imaginative. In the enjoyment of
his varied writings, we are chiefly impressed by their
constant exhibition of mental prowess, and everywhere
confronted with an eager and incomparable intellect.
Last of all to captivate the judgment of the laity, and
somewhat lacking, it may be, in sympathetic quality of
tone, Landor is, first of all, a poet for poets, of clear
vision and assured utterance throughout the Victo
rian Year. His station resembles that of a bulkhead
defending the sea-wall of some lasting structure, a
mole or pier, built out from tuneful, grove-shaded Ar
cadian shores. He stretches far into the channel along
which the tides of literary fashion have ebbed and
flowed. Other poets, leading or following the change
ful current, often appear to leave him behind; but
2*
C

34

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

often find themselves again where he looms, unchanged


and dauntless, wearing a lighted beacon at his head.
Born in
Why, among Victorian poets, do I first mention this
Warwick,
one,
who was born under George III. ; who ban
yan. 30,
1775died epithets with Byron, was the life-long friend of
Southey, the contemporary, likewise, in their prime,
of Wordsworth, Scott, and Coleridge ; in whose matu
rity occurred the swift and shining transits of Keats
and Shelley, like the flights of shooting-stars ; whose
His pro
longed
most imposing poem was given to the world at a
career.
date earlier than the first consulate of Napoleon ;
who lived, from the times of Warton and Pye, to #see
three successive laureates renew the freshness of Eng
land's faded coronal, while he sang aloof and took
no care ? Because, more truly than another declared
of himself, he stood among these, but not of them ;
greater or less, but different, and with the difference
of a time then yet to follow. His style, thought, and
versatility
were Victorian rather than Georgian ; they
His method
Victorian. are now seen to belong to that school of which Tenny
son is by eminence the representative. So far as his
manner was anything save his own, it was that of
recent years ; let us say, instead, that the popular
method constantly approached Landor's until the epoch
of his death, and he died but even now, when it
is on the point of yielding to something, we know not
what. He not only lived to see the reflection and
naturalism of Wordsworth produce fatigue, but to the
borders of a reaction from that finesse and technical
perfection which succeeded. His influence scarcely
yet has grown to reputation, by communication from
the select few to the receptive many, though he has
always stood, unwittingly, at the head of a normal
school, teaching the teachers. Passages are easily

PROLONGED AND EMINENT CAREER.


traceable where his art, at least, has been followed by
poets who themselves have each a host of imitators.
He may not have been the cause of certain phe
nomena ; they may have sprung from the tendency
of the age, if so, he was the first to catch the ten
dency. Despite his appreciation of the antique, his
genius found daily excitants in new discovery, action,
and thought ; he never reached that senility to which
earlier modes and generations seem the better, but
was first to welcome progress, and thoroughly up with
the times. The larger portion of his work saw print
long after Tennyson began to compose, and his epic,
tragedies, and miscellaneous poems were not brought
together, in a single volume, until 1837, a date with
in five years of the laureate's first collective edition.
Hence, while it is hard to confine him to a single
period, he is a tall and reverend landmark of the one
under review ; and the day has come for measuring
him as a poet of that time, whatever he may have
been in any other. Nor is he to be observed as an
eccentric and curious spectacle, but as a distinguished
figure among the best. As an artist he was, like a
maple, swift of development, but strong to hold it as
an elm or oak ; while many poets have done their
best work under thirty, and ten years after have been
old or dead, the very noontide of Landor's faculties
was later than his fiftieth year. We could not regard
him as a tyro, had he died, like Keats, at twenty-five,
nor as a jaded old man, dying, as he did, at ninety ;
for he was as conservative in youth as he ever grew
to be, and as fiery and forward-looking in age as in
youth. He attained the summit early, and moved
along an elevated plateau, forbearing as he grew older
to descend the further side, and at death flung off

35

36

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

somewhere into the ether, still facing the daybreak


and worshipped by many rising stars.
Sustained
Were it not for this poet's sustained equality with
equality.
himself, we should be unable here to write of his ca
reer of seventy years, filled with literary recreations,
each the companion of its predecessor, and all his
own. Otherwise, in considering his works, we should
have to review the history of that period, as one
who writes, for example, the life of Voltaire, must
write the history of the eighteenth century. Landor's
volumes not only touch upon the whole procession of
those seventy years, with keen intuitive treatment of
their important events, but go further, and almost
Intellectual cover the range of human action and thought. In this
range.
respect I find no such man of our time. A writer
of dialogues, he subjects affairs to the scrutiny of a
modern journalist; but his newspaper has every age
'| for its date of issue, and the history of the world
supplies it with local incident.
What is there in the air of Warwickshire to breed
such men ? For he was born by Shakespeare's stream,
and verily inhaled something of the master's spirit at
his birth. Once, in the flush of conscious power, he
sang of himself,
"I drank of Avon too, a dangerous draught,
That roused within the feverish thirst of song."

Univer
sality,

Lowell has said of him, that, "excepting Shake


speare, no other writer has furnished us with so many
delicate aphorisms of human nature " ; and we may
add that he is also noticeable for universality of con
templation and the objective treatment of stately
themes. In literature, his range is unequalled by that
of Coleridge, who was so opulent and suggestive; in

HIS UNIVERSALITY.
philosophy, history, and art, Goethe is not wiser or
more imaginative, though often more calm and great ;
in learning, the department of science excepted, no
writer since Milton has been more thoroughly equipped.
We place Landor, who was greater, even, as a prosewriter, among the foremost poets, because it was the
poet within the man that made him great; his poetry
belongs to a high order of that art, while his prose,
though strictly prosaic in form, he was too fine an
artist to have it otherwise, is more imaginative than
other men's versesi Radically a poet, he ranks among
the best essayists of his time ; and he shares this dis
tinction in common with Milton, Coleridge, Emerson,
and other poets, in various eras, who have been intel
lectual students and thinkers. None but sentimental
ists and dilettanti confuse their prose and verse,
tricking out the former with a cheap gloss of rhetoric,
or the false and effeminate jingle of a bastard rhythm.
I have hinted, already, that his works are deficient
in that broad human sympathy through which Shake
speare has found his way to the highest and lowest
understandings, just as the cloud seems to one a
temple, to another a continent, to the child a fairypalace, but is dazzling and glorious to all. Landor
belonged, in spite of himself, to the Parnassian aris
tocracy ; was, as has been said, a poet for poets, and
one who personally impressed the finest organizations.
Consider the names of those who, having met him and
known his works, perceived in him something great
and worshipful. His nearest friends or admirers were
Southey, Wordsworth, Hunt, Milnes, Armitage Brown ;
the philosophers, Emerson and Carlyle ; such men of
letters as Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, Forster, Julius and
Francis Hare; the bluff old philologist, Samuel Parr;

37

38

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


the fair and discerning Blessington ; Napier, the sol
dier and historian ; Elizabeth and Robert Browning,
the most subtile and extreme of poets, and, ir>. the
sunrise of his life, the youngest, Algernon Swinburne ;
among the rest, note Dickens, who found so much
that was rare and undaunted in the man : I am
almost persuaded to withdraw my reservation ! True,
Landor lived long: in seventy years one makes and
loses many votaries and friends ; but such an artist,
who, whether as poet or man, could win and retain
the affection and admiration, despite his thousand
caprices, of so many delicate natures, varying among
themselves in temperament and opinion, must indeed
possess a many-sided greatness. Nor is the definition
of sympathetic quality restricted to that which touches
the popular heart. There are persons who might
read without emotion much of Dickens's sentiment
and humor, yet would feel every fibre respond to the
exquisite beauty of Landor's "Pericles and Aspasia";
persons whom only the purest idealism can strongly
affect. But this is human also. Shall not the wise,
as well as the witless, have their poejs? There is an
idea current that art is natural only when it appeals to
the masses, or awakens the simple, untutored emotions
of humble life. In truth, the greater should include
the less ; the finer, if need be, the coarse ; the composer
of a symphony has, we trust, melody enough at his
command. Stage presentation has done much to popu
larize Shakespeare ; his plays, moreover, are relished
for their stories, as "Pilgrim's Progress " and "Gulliver's
Travels " are devoured by children without a thought of
the theology of the one or the measureless satire of
the other. Landor's work has no such vantage-ground,
and much of it is "caviare to the general"; but he is

HIS JUVENILE POEMS.


none the less human, in that he is the poet's poet,
I the artist's artist, the delight of high, heroic souls.
When nineteen years old, in 1795, ne printed his first
book, a rhymed satire upon the Oxford dons, and
his muse never left him till he died in 1864, lacking
four months only of his ninetieth birthday. Seventy
years of literary life, of which the noteworthy portion
may be reckoned from the appearance of "Gebir" in
1798, to that of the later series of the "Hellenics" in
1847 : since, although compositions dating the very year
of his death exhibit no falling off, and his faculty was
vigorous to the end, he produced no important work
subsequent to the one last mentioned. His collections
of later poems and essays are of a miscellaneous or
fragmentary aort, and, though abounding in beautiful
and characteristic material, exhibit many trifles which
add nothing to his fame. In reviewing his career, let
us first look at his poetry, which contains the key to
his genius and aspirations.
His earliest verses, like those of Shelley and Byron,
have a stilted, academic flavor, and, though witty enough,
were instigated by youthful conceit and abhorrence of
conventional authority. They were followed by a redhot political satire, in the metre and diction of Pope.
Thus far, nothing remarkable for a boy of nineteen :
merely an illustration of the law that " nearly all young
poets .... write old."1 The great poetic revival had
1 Not having a copy of Landor's first book, I have taken the
description, given in the side-note, from Forster's biography, but
am informed by Mr. Swinburne that Poems, English and Latin, is
the correct title. My correspondent adds : " It contains a good
deal besides satire, though that is perhaps its best part. The
Epistle to Lord Stanhope, which I have also, is, I think, some
thing remarkable for a boy of nineteen, singularly polished and
vigorous."

39

4Q

"Gebir,"
1798.

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


not begun. Bums was still almost unknown ; Cowper
very faintly heard ; fledglings tried their wings in the
direction of Pope, Warton, and Gray. The art of verse,
the creation of beauty for its own sake or for that of
imaginative expression, at first took small hold upon
Landor. Considering the era, it is wonderful how
soon the converse of this was true. Three years to a
young man are more than three times three in after
life ; but never was there a swifter stride made than
from Landor's prentice-work to Gebir, which dis
played his royal poetic genius in full robes. Where
now be his politics and polemics? Henceforth his
verse, for the most part, is wedded to pure beauty, and
prose becomes the vehicle of his critical or controver
sial thought. In "Gebir," art, treatment, imagination,
are everything ; argument very little ; the story is of a
remote, Oriental nature, a cord upon which he strings
his extraordinary language, imagery, and versification.
The structure is noble in the main, though chargeable,
like Tennyson's earlier poetry, with vagueness here and
there ; the diction is majestic and sonorous, and its
progress is specially marked by sudden, almost ran
dom, outbursts of lofty song. I do not hesitate to say
that this epic, as poetry, and as a marvelous produc
tion for the period and for Landor's twenty-two years,
stands next to that renowned and unrivaled torso, com
posed so long afterward, the "Hyperion" of John Keats.
It was the prototype of our modern formation, cropping
out a great distance in advance. To every young poet
who has yet his art to learn, I would say do not
overlook "Gebir," this strangely modern poem, which,
though seventy-five years old, has so much of Tenny
son's finish, of Arnold's objectivity, and the romance
of Morris and Keats. Forster, Landor's biographer,

igebir:

41

says that it is now unknown. When was it ever known ?


The first edition had little sale ; a sumptuous later
issue, including the Latin translation "Gebirus," had
still less. But the poets found it out; it was the
envy of Byron ; the despair of Southey, who could
appreciate, if he could not create ; the bosom-com
panion of Shelley, to the last ; nor can I doubt that,
directly and indirectly, it had much to do with the
inception and development of the Victorian School.
make
he
Incomposed
recalling
no specific
from
Landor's
allusion
time writings,
tototime,
the minor
careless
prose pieces
and
about
verse,
which
theirI tiS0^duc
MisceUam-

reception, easily satisfied with the expression of his


latest mood. A catalogue of them, extending from the
beginning to the middle of our century, lies before
me : The Phocmans, an unfinished epic ; The Charitable
Dowager, a comedy that never saw the light ; various
Icelandic poems, all save one of which are wisely
omitted from his collected works; epigrams, letters,
critiques, and what not; often mere Sibylline leaves,
sometimes put forth in obscurest pamphlet-form,
sometimes elaborate with revision and costly with the
utmost resources of the press ; making little mark at
the time, but all idiosyncratic, Landorian, though closer
scrutiny of them need not detain us here. His liter
ary life was like the firmament, whose darkest openings
are interspersed with scattered stars, but only the
luminous, superior constellations herewith invite our
regard. His first dramatic effort, made after a stormy Dramatic
and ill-regulated experience of fifteen years, was the
gloomy but magnificent tragedy of Count Julian. "Cnmijw
Like Shelley's
ridge's
adaptation
"Cenci,"
of " Wallenstein,"
Byron's "Manfred,"
it is aand
dramatic
Colepoem rather than a stage-drama of the available kind.

42

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


Compared with kindred productions of the time, how
ever, it stands like the " Prometheus " among classic
plays ; and as an exposition of dramatic force, a con
ception of the highest manhood in the most heroic
and mournful attitude, as a presentment of impas
sioned language, pathetic sentiment, and stern resolve,
it is an impressive and undying poem. Landor's
career must be measured by Olympiads or lustra, not
by years ; he was thirty-five when he took this fearless
dramatic flight, and then, save for occasional fragmen
tary scenes, his special faculty remained unused until
he was nearly sixty-five, in 1839-40, at which date
he composed and published his Trilogy. The three
plays thus grouped "Andrea of Hungary," " Giovanna of Naples," and " Fra Rupert " are, except
ing the one previously mentioned, the only extended
dramatic poems which he has left us. Though rarely
so imaginative and statuesque as " Count Julian," they
are better adapted in action, and show no decline of
power. Between the one and the others occurred the
marvellous prose period of Landor's career, by which
he first became generally known and upon which so
largely rests his fame. From 1824 to 1837, these
thirteen years embrace the interval during which was
written the most comprehensive and delightful prose
in the English tongue, upon whose every page is
stamped
One isthe
more
patent
nearly
of the
drawn
author
to as
Landor
a sageand
withpoet.
the
affection which all lovers of beauty, pure and simple,
feel for the poet by the Hellenics than by any
other portion of his metrical work. The volume bear
ing that name was written when he was well past the
Scriptural limit of life, at the age of seventy-two, and
published in 1847. It consisted of translations from

THE 'HELLENICS:
his own Idyllia Heroica : Latin poems (many of them
composed and printed forty years earlier) which were
finally collected and revised for publication in a little
volume, Poemata et Inscripiiones, which appeared, I
think, in 1846. Of Landor's aptitude and passion for
writing in Latin verse I shall speak hereafter. His
sin in this respect (if it be a sin),' is amply expiated
by the surpassing beauty of " Corythus," the " Last of
Ulysses," and other translations from the "Idyllia."
Still more exquisite, if possible, are the fifteen idyls,
also called Hellenics, which previously had been col
lected in the standard octavo edition of his works,
edited by Julius Hare and John Forster, and printed
in 1846. During the past thirty years a taste for
experimenting with classical themes has seized upon
many a British poet, and numberless fine studies have
been the result, from the " (Enone " and " Tithonus "
of the laureate to more extended pieces, like the
" Andromeda " of Kingsley, and Swinburne's " Atalanta in Calydon." But to Landor, from his youth,
the antique loveliness was a familiar atmosphere, in
which he dwelt and had his being with a contentment
so natural that he scarcely perceived it was not com
mon to others, or thought to avail himself of it in
the way of metrical art. Finding that people could
not, or would not, read the " Idyllia," he was led to
translate them into English verse; and of all the
classical pieces in our language, his own, taken as
a whole, are the most varied, natural, simple, least
affected with foreign forms :
"Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
Piercing sweet by the river."
1 See remarks upon Swinburne's Greek and Latin verse, etc.,
in Chapter XI. of this book.

43

44

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


Generally they are idyllic, and after the Sicilian
school. Now and then some Homeric epithets ap
pear; as where he speaks of "full fifty slant-browed,
kingly-hearted swine," but such examples are un
common. For the most part the Greek manner and
feeling are veritably translated. " The Hamadryad "
is universally known, possessed of delicious melody
and pathos which commend it to the multitude : I am
not sure that any other ancient story, so tranquilly
and beautifully told, is in our treasury of English
song. The overture to the first of the " Hellenics "
suggests the charm and purpose of them all :
" Who will away to Athens with me ? who
Loves choral songs and maidens crowned with flowers,
Unenvious ? mount the pinnace ; hoist the sail."
That splendid apostrophe to liberty, the fifteenth
of the first series, beginning,
" We are what suns and winds and waters make us ;
The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills
Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles,"
recalls the Hellenic spirit from its grave, and brings
these antique creations within the range of modern
thought and sympathy. In fine, it must be acknowl
edged that for tender grace, sunlight, healthfulness,
these idyls are fresh beyond comparison, the inspira
tion of immortal youth. Never have withered hands
more bravely swept the lyre.
Landor, as I have said, was noticeable among recent
poets as an artist, and the earliest to revive the par
tially forgotten elegance of English verse. Whoever
considers the metrical product of our era must con
stantly bear in mind the stress laid upon the technics
of the poet's calling. No shiftlessness has been tol

A FAULTLESS AND PROLIFIC ARTIST.

45

erated, and Landor was the first to honor his work


with all the finish that a delicate ear and faultless
touch could bestow upon it. But in observing the
perfection of the " Hellenics," for example, you dis
cern at a glance that it is only what was natural to
him and reached by the first intention; that he falsi
fied the distich with reference to easy writing and
hard reading, and composed admirably at first draught.
By way of contrast, one sees that much of the famous
poetry of the day has been carved with pains, " labo
rious, orient ivory, sphere in sphere." The morning
grandeur of "Count Julian" and "Gebir," and the
latter-day grace of Landor's idyls and lyrics, came to
their author as he went along.
A poor workman
blames his tools ; but he was so truly an artist and
poet, that he took the nearest instrument which sug
gested itself, and wrought out his conceptions to his
own satisfaction, somewhat too careless, it must be
owned, whether others relished them or not.
At
certain times, from the accident of study and early
training, his thoughts ran as freely in Latin numbers
as in English; and, without considering the utter
uselessness of such labor, he persisted in writing
Latin verses, to the alternate amusement and indig
nation of his friends ; always quite at ease in either
language, strong, melodious, and full of humor,
"strength's rich superfluity." The famous shell-pas
sage in "Gebir" was written first in Latin, and more
musically than its translation.
Compare the latter
with the counterpart in Wordsworth's "Excursion,"
and determine, not which of the two poets had the
profounder nature, but which was Apollo's darling
and the more attractively endowed. Landor's blank fits blank
verse, the test of an English singer, is like nothing

46

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


before it; but that of Tennyson and his followers
resembles it, by adoption and development.
Like
the best pentameter of the present day, it is akin to
Milton's ; affected, like his, by classical influence,
but rather of the Greek than the Latin ; more closely
assimilated to the genius of our tongue and with
fewer inversions ; terse, yet fluent, assonant, harmo
nious. Grace and nobility are its prominent char
acteristics.
Landor's affluence embarrassed him. He had noth
ing costive in his nature, disdained the tricks of
smaller men, and could not spend days upon a son
net ; it must come at once, and perfect, or not at all.
He was a Fortunatus, and, because the ten pieces of
gold were always by him, delayed to bring together
a store of poetry for his own renown. This was one
secret of his leaving so few extended compositions ;
other reasons will be named hereafter ; meantime it is
certain that he never hoarded and fondled his qua
trains, and that there was no waste, the supply being
infinite.
The minor lyrics, epigrams, fragments,
thrown off during his capricious life, in which every
mood was indulged to the full and every lot experi
enced, are numberless ; sometimes frivolous enough,
biting and spleenful, yet bearing the mark of a deli
cate hand ; often, like " Rose Aylmer," possessed of
an ethereal pathos, a dying fall, upon which poets
have lived for weeks and which haunt the soul for
ever. Ideality belonged to Landor throughout life ;
for seventy years he reminds one of the girl in the
fairy-tale, who could not speak without dropping
pearls and diamonds. A volume might be made of
the lyrical gems with which even his prose writings
are interspersed. He had an aptitude for the largest

HIS DRAMATIC FACULTY.


and smallest work, the true Shakespearian range ; and
could make anything in poetry, from the posy of a
ring to the chronicle of its most heroic wearer.
While Landor's art is thus varied and original, his
strongest hold the natural bent of his imagination
lay, as I have suggested, in the direction of the
drama. This he himself felt and often expressed ;
yet his dramatic works are only enough to show what
things he might have accomplished, under the favor
able conditions of a sympathetic age. Few modern
poets have done much more. Procter, Taylor, Beddoes, Browning, his dramatic compeers can almost
be numbered on the fingers of one hand. I am not
speaking of the playwrights. Had he written many
dramas, doubtless they would have been of the Eliz
abethan style : objective rather than subjective ; their
personages distinct in manner, language, and action,
though not brought under the close psychological
analysis which is a feature ' of our modern school.
We have substituted the novel for the drama, yet,
were Shakespeare now alive, he might write novels
and he might not. Possibly, like Landor, he would
be repelled by the mummery of the plot, which in the
novel must be so much more minutely developed than
in a succession of stage-scenes. Landor might have
constructed a grand historical romance, or a respect
able novel, but he never attempted either. Had the
stage demanded and recompensed the labor of the
best minds, he would have written plays, doing even
the " business " well ; for he had the intellect and
faculty, and touched nothing without adorning it. As
it was, the plot seemed, in his view, given up to char
latans and hacks ; he had small patience with it,
because, not writing in regular course for the theatre,

47

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


the framework of a drama did not come from him
spontaneously.
His tragedies already named, and
various fragments, " Ippolito di Este," " Ines de
Castro," "The Cenci," and "Cleopatra," are to be
regarded as dramatic studies, and are replete with
evidences of inspiration and tragic power.
Some
times a passage like this, from " Fra Rupert," has the
strength and fire of Webster, in "The Duchess of
Malfi ":
"Stephen.
Worst of it all
Is the queen's death.
Maximin.
The queen's ?
Stephen.
They stifled her
With her own pillow.
Maximin.
Who says that?
Stephen.
The man
Runs wild who did it, through the streets, and howls it,
Then imitates her voice, and softly sobs,
' Lay me in Santa Chiara.' "
We say that Landor was an independent singer,
but once more the inevitable law obtains. He was
His restric restricted by his period, which afforded him neither
tions.
poetical themes most suited to his intellect, nor the
method of expression in which he could attain a full
development. He had little outside stimulus to fre
quent work.
In his youth the serial market was
limited to The Gentleman's Magazine and the preten
tious quarterly reviews. His early poems did not sell :
they were in advance of the contemporary demand.
In poetry, let us confess that he fell short of his own
standard, never so well defined as in " The Pentameron " : " Amplitude of dimensions is requisite to
constitute the greatness of a poet, besides his sym
We
metrymay
of write
form little
and his
things
richness
well, and
of decoration
accumulate one

HIS PROSE WRITINGS.

49

upon another; but never will any justly be called a


great poet, unless he has treated a great subject wor
do
thilya thousand
A throne
reeds ismake
not built
a trumpet."
of bird's-nests,
The one
nor
great want of many a master-mind oppressed him,
lack of theme. 3Better fitted to study thingsd at a dis
tance, always an idealist and dreaming of some large
achievement, Landor, with his imaginative force un
met by any commensurate task, wandered like "blind
Orion, hungry for the morn." Or, like that other
hapless giant, he groped right and left, but needed
a guide to direct his strong arms to the pillars, that
he might bow himself indeed and put forth all his
powers.
How great these were the world had never known,
were it not for that interlude of prose composition
which occupied a portion of the years between his
early and later work. From youth his letters, often
essays and reviews in themselves, to his selectest
intellectual companions, exhibit him as a splendid
artist in prose and a learned and accurate thinker.
He had been drinking the wine of life, reading, re
flecting, studying "cities of men .... and climates,
councils, governments," at Tours, Como, Pisa, Flor
ence, Bath; and, at the age of forty-five or forty-six,
with every faculty matured, he became suddenly aware
of the fitness of written dialogue as the vehicle of
his conceptions, and for the exercise of that dra
matic tendency which had thus far found no practi
cable outlet. Forster has pointed out that this form
of literature was suited alike to his strength, dogma
tism, and variety of mood. The idea, once conceived,
was realized with his usual impetuosity. It swelled
and swelled, drawing up the thought and observation

Lack of
theme.

Greatness as
a ivriier of
English
prose.

50

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


of a lifetime ; in two years the first and second books
of Imaginary Conversations were given to the world,
and in four more, six volumes in all had been com
pleted. For the first time the English people were
dazzled and affected by this author's genius ; the
books were a success ; and all citizens of the republic
of letters discovered, what a few choice spirits had
known before, that Landor was their peer and master.
It is needless to eulogize the series of "Imaginary
Conversations," to which the poet kept adding, as
the fancy seized him, until the year of his decease,
within the memory of us all. They have passed into
literature, and their influence and charm are undying.
They are an encyclopaedia, a panoramic museum, a
perpetual drama, a changeful world of fancy, char
acter, and action. Their learning covers languages,
histories, inventions ; their thought discerns and an
alyzes literature, art, poetry, philosophy, manners, life,
government, religion, everything to which human
faculties have applied themselves, which eye has seen,
ear has heard, or the heart of man conceived. Their
personages are as noble as those of Sophocles, as
sage and famous as Plutarch's, as varied as ' those of
Shakespeare himself: comprising poets, wits, orators,
soldiers, statesmen, monarchs, fair women and brave
men. Through them all, among them all, breathes the
spirit of Landor, and above them waves his compel
ling wand. Where his subjectivity becomes apparent,
it is in a serene and elevated mood ; for he is trav
ersing the realm of the ideal, his better angel rules the
hour, and the man is transfigured in the magician and
poet.
Paulo majora canamus. From the exhaustless re
sources of Landor's imagination, he was furthermore

A TRINITY OF PROSE-POEMS.
enabled to construct a trinity of prose-poems, not frag
mentary episodes or dialogues, but round and perfect
compositions, each of them finished and artistic in
the extreme degree. The Citation of Shakespeare, the
Pentameron, and Pericles and Aspasia depict England,
Italy, and Greece at their renowned and character
istic periods : the greenwood and castle-halls of Eng
land, the villas and cloisters of Italy, the sky and
marbles of ancient Greece ; the pedantry and poetry
of the first, the mysticism of the second, the deathless
grace and passion of Athens at her prime. Of "The
Citation and Examination of William Shakespeare,
etc., etc., Touching Deer-Stealing," I can but repeat
what Charles Lamb said, and all that need here be
said of it, that only two men could have written
it, he who wrote it, and the man it was written on.
It can only be judged by reading, for there is nothing
resembling it in any tongue. "The Pentameron" (of
Boccaccio and Petrarca) was the last in date of
these unique conceptions, and the favorite of Hunt,
Crabb Robinson, Disraeli ; a mediaeval reproduction,
the tone of which while always in keeping with
itself is so different from that of the " Citation,"
that one would think it done by another hand, if any
other hand were capable of doing it. Even to those
who differ with its estimation of Dante, its learning,
fidelity, and picturesqueness seem admirable beyond
comparison. The highest luxury of a sensitive, cul
tured mind is the perusal of a work like this. Mrs.
Browning found some of its pages too delicious to
turn over. Yet this study had been preceded by the
" Pericles and Aspasia," which, as an exhibition of
intellectual beauty, may be termed the masterpiece of
Landor's whole career.

51
A trinity of
prose-poems.

" Citation of
Shake
speare"
834-

" The Pen


tameron"
'837-

52

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


Critics are not wanting who maintain " Pericles and
Aspasia" to be the purest creation of sustained art in
English prose. It is absolutely devoid of such affec
tations as mark the romances and treatises of Sidney,
Browne, and many famous writers of the early and
middle periods ; and to " The Vicar of Wakefield," and
other classics of a time nearer our own, it bears the
relation of a drama to an eclogue, or that of a sym
phony to some sweet and favorite air. What flawless
English ! what vivid scenery and movement ! Com
posed without a reference-book, it is accurate in schol
arship, free from inconsistencies as Becker's "Charicles " ; nevertheless, the action is modern, as that of
every golden era must appear ; the personages, whether
indicated lightly or at full length, are living human
beings before our eyes. As all sculpture is included
in the Apollo Belvedere, so all Greek life, sunshine,
air, sentiment, contribute to these eloquent epistles.
A rare imagination is required for such a work. While
comparable with nothing but itself, it leaves behind it
the flavor of some " Midsummer Night's Dream " or
"Winter's Tale," maugre the unreality and anachro
nisms. Landor's dainty madrigals are scattered through
out, coming in like bird-songs upon the sprightly or
philosophical Athenian converse: here we find "Artemidora " and " Aglae " ; here, too, is the splendid
fragment of " Agamemnon." How vividly Alcibiades,
Anaxagoras, Socrates, Pericles, Aspasia, appear before
us : the noonday grace and glory, the indoor banquet
and intellectual feast ! We exclaim, not only : What
rulers ! what poets and heroes ! but What children
of light ! what laurelled heads ! what lovers what
passionate hearts! How modern, how intense, how
human! what beauty, what delicacy, what fire! We

'PERICLES AND ASPASIA.'


penetrate the love of high-bred men and women : nobles
i
ii
i ri .
e
.. .
by nature and rank; surely finer subjects for realistic
treatment than the boor and the drudge. Where both
are equally natural, I would rather contemplate a
horse or a falcon, than the newt and the toad. Thus
r T
, ,
.
far, I am sure, one may carry the law of aristocracy in
art. The people of this book are brave, wise, and
beautiful, or at least fitly adapted: some unhappy,
others, under whatsoever misfortune, enraptured, be
cause loving and beloved. Never were women more
tenderly depicted. Aspasia, with all her love of glory,
confesses: "You men often talk of glorious death, of
death met bravely for your country; I too have been
warmed by the bright idea in oratory and poetry : but
ah ! my dear Pericles ! I would rather read it on an
ancient tomb than a recent one." Again, in the midst
of their splendor and luxury, she exclaims : "When
the war is over, as surely it must be in another year,
let us sail among the islands yEgean and be as young
as ever ! " Just before the death of Pericles by the
plague, amid thickening calamities, they write trage
dies and study letters and art. All is heroic and
natural : they turn from grand achievements to the
delights of intellect and affection. Where is another
picture so elevating as this? Fame, power, luxury, are
forgotten in the sympathy and glorious communion of
kindred souls. Where is one so fitted to reconcile us
with death, the end of all such communings, the
common lot, from which even these beautiful ideals
are not exempt ? Ay, their deaths, in the midst of so
much that made life peerless and worth living, follow
each other in pathetic, yet not inharmonious succes
sion, like the silvery chimings of a timepiece at the
close of a summer's day.

53
cf- " Poel>
ofA merua" -.
43Aristocratism in art.

54

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


"Pericles and Aspasia" is a Greek temple, with
frieze and architrave complete. If it be not Athens,
it is what we love to think Athens must have been,
in the glory of Pericles' last days. It is a thing of
beauty for all places and people ; for the deep-read
man of thought and experience, for the dreamy youth
or maiden in the farthest Western wilds. The form
is that of prose, simple and translucent, yet it is a
poem from beginning to end. I would test the fabric
of a person's temper by his appreciation of such a
book. If only one work of an author were given as
a companion, many would select this : not alone for
its wisdom, eloquence, and beauty, but for its pathos
and affection. You can read it again and again,
and ever most delightfully. The "Citation" and the
" Pentameron " must be studied with the scholar's
anointed eyes, and are sealed to the multitude ; but
" Pericles and Aspasia " is clear as noonday, a book
for thinkers, but a book for lovers also, and should
be as immortal as the currents which flow between
young hearts.
II.

study of
There has been much confusion of Landor's per*pst7Jhu- sonal history with his writings, and an inclination to
toryjudge the latter by the former. The benison of Time
enables us, after the lapse of years, to discriminate
between the two ; while the punishment of a misgov
erned career is that it hinders even the man of genius
from being justified during his lifetime. However,
before further consideration of Landor's works, that
we may see what bearing the one had on the other,
and with this intention solely, let us observe the
man himself.

HIS PERSONAL HISTORY AND CHARACTER.


We need not rehearse the story of his prolonged,
adventurous life. It was what might be expected of
such a character, and to speak of the one is to infer
the other. Frea's address to her liege, in Arnold's
" Balder Dead," occurs to me as I think of the hoary
poet. " Odin, thou Whirlwind," he was, forsooth : tem
pestuous, swift of will ; an egotist without vanity, but
equally without reason ; impatient of fools and upstarts ;
so intellectually proud, that he suspected lesser minds
of lowering him to their own level, when they honestly
admired his works ; scornful, yet credulous ; careless
of his enemies, too often suspicious of his friends ; a
law unto himself, even to the extreme fulfilment of his
most erratic impulse ; enamored of liberty, yet not sel
dom confounding it with license ; loving the beautiful
with his whole soul, but satisfied no less with the con
scious power of creating than with its exercise. Such
was Landor, though quite transfigured, I say, when
absorbed in the process of his art. Every inspired
artist has a double existence : his " life is twofold,"
and the nobler one is that by which he should be
judged.
And yet, our poet's temperament was so extraordi
nary that it is no less a study than his productions.
He was wayward, unrestful, full-veined, impetuous to
the very end. Nothing but positive inability restrained
him from gratifying a single passion or caprice. His
nature was so buoyant that, like the Faun, he forgot
both pain and pleasure, and had few stings of sorrow
or regret to guard him from fresh woes and errors.
As he learned nothing from experience, his life was
one perpetual series of escapades, of absurd per
plexities at Rugby, Oxford, Llanthony, and in foreign
lands. Even in art he often seemed like a wind-harp,

55

56

WALTER SAVAGE LAND OR.


responding to every breath that stirred his being: a
superb voice executing voluntaries and improvisations,
but disinclined to synthetic utterance. He lacked that
guiding force which is gained only by the wisest disci
pline, the most beneficent influences in youth : under
such influences this grand character might have been
strong and perfect, but his fortunes served to lessen
the completeness of his genius. The author's tradi
tional restrictions were wanting in Landor's case. He
stood first in the entail of a liberal estate, and selfcontrol was never imposed upon him. One great gift
denied to him was the suspicion of his own mortality.
It has been rightly said that he and his brothers
came of a race of giants. His physical health and
strength were so absolute, that no fear of the short
ness of life was present to stimulate his ambition. He
needed, like the imperator, some faithful slave to whis
per in his ear, Remember that thou too art mortal !
His tendencies never were evil, but in their violence
illustrated Fourier's theory of the reverse action of
the noblest passions. More than all else, it was this
lack of self-restraint that made the infinite difference
between himself and the great master to whose univer
sality of genius his own was most akin.
Had Landor been poor, had he felt some thorn in
the flesh but he was more handicapped at the out
set with wealth and health than Wordsworth with
poverty or Hood with want and disease. Born a
patrician, his caste was assured, and his actions were
of that defiant, democratic kind, upon which snobs
and parvenus dare not venture. He scattered his
wealth as he chose, and would not let his station
restrict him from the experiences of the poor. The
audacious conceptions of novelists were realized in

HIS UNCONVENTIONALISM.
his case. It was impossible to make him a conven
tional respecter of persons and temporal things. If
ever a man looked through and through clothes and
titles, Landor did ; and as for property, it seemed
to him impedimenta and perishable stuff. Yet he loved
luxury, and was uncomfortable when deprived of it.
Determined, first of all, to live his life, to enjoy and
develop every gift and passion, he touched life at more
points than do most men of letters. Possibly he had
not the self-denial of those exalted devotees, who eat,
marry, and live for art alone. The lust of the flesh,
the lust of the eye, and the pride of life were strong
within him. Here he resembled Byron and Alfieri,
to whom he was otherwise related, except that his
heart was too warm and light for the vulgar misan
thropy of the first, and his blood too clean and health
ful for the grosser passions of either.
Trouble bore lightly enough upon a man who so
readily forgot the actual world, that we find him writ
ing Latin idyls just after his first flight from his wife,
or turning an epigram when his estate was ruined
forever. Inconstant upon the slightest cause, he yet
was faithful to certain life-long friends, and, if one
suffered never so little for his sake, was ready to
yield life or fortune in return. Such was his feeling
toward Robert Landor, Forster, Southey, Browning,
and the great novelist who drew that genial caricature
by which his likeness is even now most widely known
Dickens, who of all men was least fit to pronounce
judgment Upon Landor's work, and cared the least to
do it, was of all most fit to estimate his strength and
weakness, his grim and gentle aspects. In " Boythorn " we hear his laugh rising higher, peal on peal ;
we almost see his leonine face and lifted brow, the
3*

57

58

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


strong upper lip, the clear gray eye, and ineffably
sweet and winsome smile. We listen to his thousand
superlatives of affection, compliment, or wrath, and
know them to be the safety-valves of a nature over
charged with " the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn,
the love of love " ; of a poet and hero in the extreme,
who only needed the self-training that with years
should bring the philosophic mind.
His prose writings measurably reflect his tempera
ment, though he is at special pains to disclaim it.
His minor epigrams and lyrics go still further in this
direction, and were the means of working off his sur
plus energy of humor, sympathy, or dislike. The mo
ment he regarded men and things objectively, he was
the wisest of his kind ; and some fine instinct mostly
kept him objective in his poetry, while his personality
expended itself in acts and conversation. If he sel
dom did " a wise thing," he as seldom wrote " a fool
ish one." Entering upon his volumes, we are in the
domain of the pure serene ; and his glorious faculties
of scholarship and song compensate us for that of
which his nature had too little and that of which it
wantoned in excess.
Many texts could be found in Landor's career for
an essay upon amateurship in literature or art. As a
rule, distrust the quality of that product which is not
the result of legitimate professional labor. Art must
be followed as a means of subsistence to render its cre
ations worthy, to give them a human element. Poetry
is an unsubstantial worldly support; but true poets
have frequently secluded themselves, like Milton, Cowper, and Wordsworth, so that their simple wants were
supplied ; or, plunging into life, have still made labor
with the pen writing for the stage or the press a

AMATEURSHIP IN ART.
means of living, enjoying the pleasure which comes
from being in harness and from duty squarely per
formed. They plume themselves el ego in Arcadia
upon sharing not only the transports, but the drudg
ery of the literary guild. Generally, I say, distrust
writers who come not in by the strait gate, but clamber
over the wall of amateurship. Literary men, who have
had both genius and a competence, have so felt this
that they have insisted upon the uttermost farthing for
their work, thus maintaining, though at the expense of
a reputation for avarice, the dignity of the profession,
and legitimizing their own connection with it. This
Landor was never able to do : his writing either was
not remunerative, because not open to popular sympa
thy, or unsympathetic because not remunerative ; at all
events, the two conditions went together. He began
to write for the love of it, and was always, perforce, an
amateur rather than a member of the guild. As he
grew older, he would have valued a hundred pounds
earned by his pen more than a thousand received from
his estate ; but although he estimated properly the
value of his work, and, thinking others would do the
same, was always appropriating in advance hypotheti
cal earnings to philanthropic ends, he never gained a
year's subsistence by literature ; and such of his works
as were not printed at his own expense, with the excep
tion of the first two volumes of " Imaginary Conversa
tions," entailed losses upon the firms venturing their
publication.
But amateurship in Landor's case, enforced or
chosen, did not become dilettanteism ; on the con
trary, it made him finely independent and original.
His own boast was that he was a " creature who imi
tated nobody and whom nobody imitated ; the man

59

6o

W'ALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


who walked through the crowd of poets and prosemen, and never was touched by any one's skirts."
This haughty self-gratulation we cannot allow. No
human being ever was independent, in this sense.
Landor in his youth imitated Pope, and afterwards
made beneficial study of Milton before reaching a
manner of his own. Pindar, Theocritus, and Catullus,
among the ancients, he read so closely that he could
not but feel the influence of their styles. Yet he
might justly claim that he had no part in the mere
fashion of the day, and that he wrote and thought
independent of those with whom he was on the most
intimate and coadmiring terms. He often shed tears
in the passion of his work, and his finest conceptions
were the most spontaneous, for his instinct with
regard to beauty and the canons of literary taste had
the precision of law itself. His poetic qualities, like
hisHe
acquirements,
had a thorough
weresympathy
of the rare
with and
nature
genuine
and akind.
love
for outdoor life. His biographer, while careful to de
tail the quarrels and imbroglios into which his temper
betrayed him along the course of years, gives us only
brief and fitful glimpses of his better and prevailing
mood. Happily, Forster avails himself of Landor's
letters to fill out his bulky volume, and hence cannot
wholly conceal the striking poetic qualities of the man.
Landor knew and loved the sky, the woods, and the
waters ; a day's journey was but an enjoyable walk
for him ; and he passed half his time roaming over
the hills, facing the breeze, and composing in the
open air. It was only, in fact, when quite alone that
he could be silent enough to work. For trees he
had a reverential passion.
Read his Conversation
with Pallavicini ; and examine that episode in his life,

LOVE OF NATURE.
when he bought and tried to perfect the Welsh estate,
and would have grown a forest of half a million trees,
but for his own impracticability and the boorishness
of the country churls about him. Unlike many re
flective poets, however, he never permits landscape
to distract the attention in his figure-pieces, but with
masterly art introduces it sufficiently to relieve and
give effect to their dramatic purpose. That he is
often tempted to do otherwise he confesses in a letter
to Southey, and adds : " I am fortunate, for I never
compose a single verse within doors, except in bed
sometimes. I do not know what the satirists would
say if they knew that most of my verses spring from
a gate-post or a mole-hill."
Trees, flowers, every
growing thing was sacred to him, and informed with
happy life. It was his wish and way
"To let all flowers live freely, and all die,
Whene'er their Genius bids their souls depart,
Among their kindred in their native place.
I never pluck the rose ; the violet's head
Hath shaken with my breath upon its bank,
And not reproached me ; the ever-sacred cup
Of the pure lily hath between my hands
Felt safe, unsoiled, nor lost one grain of gold."
His affection for dogs and other dumb creatures,
like his understanding of them, is no less instinctive
and sincere. Of all the Louis Quatorze rhymesters
he tolerates La Fontaine only, "for I never see an
animal," he writes, "unless it be a parrot or a mon
key or a pug-dog or a serpent, that I do not converse
with it either openly or secretly."
In the dialogue to which I have referred he pro
tests against the senseless imitation of Grecian archi
tecture in the cold climate of our North, and this

61

62

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

Classicism. reminds me of Landor's classicism and its relation


to the value of his work. In Latin composition he
excelled any contemporary, and was only equalled
by Milton and a few others of the past. Latin, as
I have shown, was at times the language of his
thoughts, and, as he wrote for expression only, he
loved to use it for his verse. Greek was less at his
command, but he could always recall it by a fort
night's study, and his taste and feeling were rather
Athenian than Roman. Undoubtedly, as judicious
friends constantly were assuring him, he threw away
precious labor in composing Latin epigrams, satires,
and idyls ; yet his English style, like that of other
famous masters, acquired a peculiar strength and
nobleness from the influence of his classical diver
sions. He has not escaped the charge of valuing
only what is old, and holding the antique fashion
to be more excellent than that of his own period.
Americans are sufficiently familiar with this conceit
of shallow critics and self-made men ; yet the finest
scholars I have known have been the most fervent
patriots, the most advanced thinkers, the most vigor
ous lovers and frequenters of our forests, mountains,
Landor
and lakes. With regard to Landor, never was a prej
thoroughly udice so misapplied. He was essentially modern and
modern, and
a radical radical, looking to the future rather than to the past,
thinker.
and was among the first to welcome and appreciate
Tennyson, the Brownings, Margaret Fuller, Kossuth,
and other poets and enthusiasts of the time. He was
called an old pagan ; while in truth his boast was
just, not only that he " walked up to the ancients
and talked with them familiarly," but that he " never
took a drop of wine or crust of bread in their
houses." There was, to be sure, something of the

HIS KNOWLEDGE.
Epicurean in the zest with which he made the most
63
of life, and his nearness to nature may seem pagan
to those whose idealism is that of the desk and closet
only. " It is hard," he says of gunning, " to take
what we cannot give ; and life is a pleasant thing, at
least to birds. No doubt the young ones say tender
things one to another, and even the old ones do not
dream of death."
Landor's appetite for knowledge was insatiable, wor His kttorvlthy of the era, and his acquisitions were immense. He edgt.
gathered up facts insensibly and retained everything
that he observed or read. Of history he was a close
and universal student. As he possessed no books of
reference, it is not surprising that his memory was
occasionally at fault. De Quincey said that his learn
ing was sometimes defective, but this was high praise
from De Quincey, and of his genius, that he always
rose with his subject, and dilated, " like Satan, into
Teneriffe or Atlas when he saw before him an an
tagonist worthy of his powers." Landor is not so
generous
compounder
one
history
to of
that
himself,
historical
I have
but facts
read,
affirms,
another
" I Iamhave
that
a horrible
Iusually
have

invented." In his " Imaginary Conversations " the


invented history, like that of Shakespeare's, seems to
me its own excuse for being. The philosophies of
every age are no less at his tongue's end, and sub
ject to his wise discrimination. With unsubstantial
metaphysics he has small patience, and believes that
"we are upon earth to learn what can be learnt upon
earth, and not to speculate upon what never can be."
Politics he is discussing constantly, but has too broad
and social a foothold to satisfy a partisan. What
soever things are just and pure, these he supports ;

64

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


above all, his love of liberty is intense as Shelley's,
Mazzini's, or Garibaldi's, and often as unreasoning.
Always on the side of the poor and oppressed, he in
directly approves even regicide, but is so tender of
heart that he would not really harm a fly. His indi
viduality was strong throughout, and he was able to
maintain no prolonged allegiance to party, church, or
state ; nay, not even to obey when he undertook obedi
ence, for, although he was at munificent expense in a
personal attempt to aid the Spanish patriots, and re
ceived an officer's commission from the Junta, he took
offence almost at the outset, and threw up his command
after a brief skirmishing experience on the frontier.
He admired our own country for its form of govern
ment, but seemed to think Washington and Franklin its
only heroic characters. If there was an exception to
his general knowledge, it was with regard to America :
like other Englishmen of his time, he had no ade
quate comprehension of men and things on this side
of the Atlantic. Could he have visited us in his
wanderings, the clear American skies, the free atmos
phere, and the vitality of our institutions would have
rejoiced his spirit, and might have rendered him more
tolerant of certain national and individual traits which,
although we trust they are but for a season, served at
a distance to excite his irritation and disdain.
For criticism Landor had a determined bent, which
displays itself in his essays, talk, and correspondence.
The critical and creative natures are rarely united in
one person. The greatest poets have left only their
own works behind them, too occupied or too indiffer
ent to record their judgment of their contemporaries.
But Landor lived in a critical age, and so acute was
his sense of the fitness of things, that it impelled him

CRITICAL POWERS.

6S

to estimate and comment upon every literary produc


tion that came under his observation. In the warmth
of his heart, he was too apt to eulogize the efforts of
his personal friends ; but, otherwise considered, his
writings are full of criticism than which there is
nothing truer, subtler, or more comprehensive in the
English tongue. He had, furthermore, a passion for
scholarly notes and minute verbal emendation. In
the former direction his scholia upon the classical
texts are full of learning and beauty ; but when he
essayed philology, of which he had little knowledge,
in the modern sense, and attempted to regulate the
orthography of our language, the result was something
lamentable. His vagaries of this sort, I need scarcely
add, were persisted in to the exclusion of greater things,
and partly, no doubt, because they seemed objection
able to others and positively hindered his career.
While the literary consciousness and thoroughly gen Technical
uine art of Landor's poetry are recognized by all of excellence.
his own profession, much of it, like certain still-life
painting, is chiefly valuable for technical beauty, and
admired by the poet rather than by the popular critic.
As one might say of Jeremy Taylor, that it was impos
sible, even by chance, that he could write profane or
libidinous doctrine, so it seemed impossible for Landor,
even in feeble and ill-advised moments, to compose
anything that was trite or inartistic. The touch of
the master, the quality of the poet, is dominant over
all. His voice was sweet, and he could not speak un
musically, though in a rage. His daintiest trifles show
this : they are found at random, like precious stones,
sometimes broken and incomplete, but every one so
far as it goes pure in color and absolutely without
flaw. A slight object served him for a text, and in

66

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.


honor of a woman who pleased him, but who seemed
far enough beneath him to ordinary eyes, he composed
eighty-five lyrics that might have beguiled Diana.
In discoursing upon elevated themes he was seized
with that divine extravagance which possessed the
bards of old ; and, in verse addressed to persons whom
he loved or detested, he took the manner of his favor
ite classical lyrists, and in every instance went to the
extreme of gallant compliment or withering scorn.
His determination to have freedom from restraint, at
all hazards and any cost, exhibits itself in his poetry
and prose. Here he found a liberty, an independence
of other rules than his own judgment or caprice, which
he could not enjoy in daily life, although in conduct,
as in letters, he was so obstreperous and unpleasant
an opponent that few cared to set themselves in his
way. I repeat that, for all his great powers, he was a
royal Bohemian in art, as throughout life, and never
in poetry composed the ample work which he himself
asserted is requisite to establish the greatness of a
poet; yet, in a more barren period, one fourth as
much as he accomplished sufficed for the reputation
of Goldsmith, Collins, or Gray.
With regard to the fame of Landor it may be said,
that, while he has not reached a rank which embold
ens any publisher to issue a complete edition of his
varied and extensive writings,1 and even his poems,
alone, are not brought together and sold with Byron,
1 At present, the best collection of Landor's works is that made
in 1846 (2 vols. 8vo), of such as he himself then deemed worthy
of preservation. A new edition has lately been printed. It con
tains the Imaginary Conversations, Citation of Shakespeare, Pentameron, Pericles and Aspasia, Gebir, the first series of Hellenics,
and most of the author's dramatic and lyric poems which pre

HIS AUDIENCE.
Longfellow, Tennyson, and other public favorites,
it is. certain, nevertheless, that he has long emerged
from that condition in which De Quincey designated
him as a man of great genius who might lay claim to
a reputation on the basis of not being read. He has
gained a hearing from a fit audience, though few,
which will have its successors through many genera
tions. To me his fame seems more secure than that
of some of his popular contemporaries. If Landor
himself had any feeling upon the subject, it was that
time would yield him justice. No one could do better
without applause, worked less for it, counted less upon
it ; yet when it came to him he was delighted in a
simple way. It pleased him by its novelty, and often
he pronounced it critical because it was applause
and overestimated the bestower : that is, he knew the
verdict of his few admirers was correct, and by it
gauged their general understanding. He challenged his
critics with a perfect consciousness of his own excellence
in art ; yet only asserted his rights when they were de
nied him. In all his books there is no whit of coward
ice or whining. Nothing could make them morbid and
jaundiced, for it was chiefly as an author that he had a
religion
Landor's
and prolonged
conscience,discouragements,
and was capablehowever,
of self-denial.
made
him contemptuous of putting out his strength before
people who did not properly measure him, and he
felt all the loneliness of a man superior to his time.
ceded its date of compilation. The later Hellenics, Last Fruit
off an Old Tree, Heroic Idyls, Scenes for a Study, etc., can only
be procured in separate volumes and pamphlets, and, in book
seller's diction, are fast becoming "rare." January, 1875: a
complete edition of Landor, in six volumes, is now announced
for early publication by a London house.

67

68

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

Detirefor In youth he once or twice betrayed a yearning for


appreciation. appreciation. How nobly and tenderly he expressed
it! "I confess to you, if even foolish men had read
'Gebir,' I should have continued to write poetry ;
there is something of summer in the hum of insects."
And again : " The popularis aura, though we are
ashamed or unable to analyze it, is requisite for the
health and growth of genius. Had 'Gebir' been a
worse poem, but with more admirers, and I had once
filled my sails, I should have made many and per
haps more prosperous voyages. There is almost as
much vanity in disdaining the opinion of the world
as in pursuing it."
He did not disdain it, but reconciled himself with
what heart he might to its absence. In later years
he asserted : " I shall have as many readers as I
desire to have in other times than ours.
I shall
dine late ; but the dining-room will be well lighted,
the guests few and select." Southey buried himself
in work, when galled by his failure to touch the
popular heart ; Landor, in life and action, and in
healthful Nature's haunts. The "Imaginary Conver
sations" were, to a certain degree, a popular suc
cess, at least, were generally known and read by
cultured Englishmen ; and for some years their author
heartily enjoyed the measure of reputation which he
then, for the first time, received. It was during this
sunlit period that he addressed a noble ode to Joseph
AWett, containing
" I never
these
courted
impulsive
friends or
lines
Fame
: ;
She pouted at me long, at last she came,
And threw her arms around my neck and said,
'Take what hath been for years delayed,
And fear not that the leaves will fall
One hour the earlier from thy coronal.' "

'THE LAST FRUIT OFF AN OLD TREE?


Threescore years and ten are the natural term of
life, yet we find Landor at that point just leaving
the meridian of his strength and splendor. When
seventy-one, he saw his English writings collected
under Forster's supervision, and his renown would
have been no less if he had then sung his nunc dimittis and composed no longer. Yet we could not
spare that most poetical volume which appeared near
the close of the ensuing year. At a dash, he made
and printed the English version of his Latin Idyls,
written half a lifetime before. We already have
classed the "Cupid and Pan," "Dryope," "The Chil
dren of Venus," with their companion-pieces, as a
portion of his choicest work. Five years afterward
he gathered up The Last Fruit off an Old Tree, and
meant therewith to end his literary labors. To this
volume was prefaced the "Dying Speech of an Old
Philosopher," and who but Landor could have writ
ten the faultless and pathetic quatrain?
" I Nature
strove with
I loved,
none,and,
for next
none towasNature,
worth Art;
my strife ;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life ;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart."
Our author's prose never was more characteristic
than in this book, which contained some modern dia
logues, much literary and political disquisition, and
the delightful critical papers upon Theocritus and
Catullus. The poetry consisted of lyrics and epistles,
with a stirring dramatic fragment, "The Cenci."
Many a time thereafter the poet turned his face to
the wall, but could not die : the gods were unkind,
and would not send Iris to clip the sacred lock. He
was compelled to live on till nothing but his voice
was left him ; yet, living, he could not be without

69

70

WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.

"Dry sucks expression. In 1857-58 came a sorrowful affair at


Bath, where the old man was enveloped in a swarm
of flies and stopped to battle with them; engaged at
eighty-two in a quixotic warfare with people immeas
urably beneath him, and sending forth epigrams, like
some worn-out, crazy warrior toying with the bowand-arrows of his childhood. I am thankful to forget
all this, when reading the classical dialogues printed
"Heroic
in his eighty-ninth year, under the title of Heroic
idyls, 1863. jjyfa still more lately were composed the poetical
scenes and dialogues given in the closing pages of
his biography.1
Deaf, lame, and blind, as Landor was, qualis .
artifex periit ! The letters, poems, and criticisms of
his last three years of life are full of thought and
excellence.
The love of song stayed by him ; he
was a poet above all, and, like all true poets, young
in feeling to the last, and fond of bringing youth
and beauty around him. We owe to one enthusiKatt FitU. astic girl, in whom both these graces were united, a
striking picture of the old minstrel with his foamwhite, patriarchal beard, his leonine visage, and head
not unlike that of Michael Angelo's " Moses " ; and
it was to the fresh and eager mind of such a listener,
with his own aesthetic sensibilities for the time well
pleased, that he offered priceless fragments of wit
1 Besides additions, in English, to the "Imaginary Conversa
tions," Landor wrote, in Italian, a dialogue entitled Savonarola
c il Priore di San Marco. It appeared in i860, but was speedily
suppressed through Church influence, and the edition remained
on his hands in sheets. The author's old prejudice against Plato
breaks out in this pamphlet, quaintly and incongruously, but Mr.
Swinburne justly says of the production that " it is a noble ' last
fruit' of the Italian branch of that mighty tree."

DEATH OF THE LION.

71

and courtesy, and expounded the simply perfect can


ons of his verse. The finest thing we know of Swin A. C. Swin
burne's life is his pilgrimage to Italy and unselfish burne.
reverence at the feet of the incomparable artist, the
unconquerable freeman, to whom he
" Came as one whose thoughts half linger,
The youngest
Half runtobefore
the oldest
;
singer
That England bore."
To some who then for the first time knew Landor,
and who were not endowed with the refined percep
tions of these young enthusiasts, the foibles of his
latter days obscured his genius ; to us, at this dis
tance, they seem only the tremors of the dying lion.
When, at the age of eighty-nine years and nine
months, he breathed his last at Florence, it was in
deed like the death of some monarch of the forest,
most untamed when powerless, away from the region
which gave him birth and the air which fostered his
scornful yet heroic spirit.

IV. S. L.
died in Flortnet, Sefl.
17, 1864.

CHAPTER

III.

THOMAS HOOD. MATTHEW ARNOLD. BRYAN


WALLER PROCTER.

I BRING together the foregoing names of poets,


whose works very clearly reflect certain phases of
English life and literature. It would be difficult to
select three more unlike one another in genius, mo
tive, and the results of their devotion to art, or any
three whose relations to their period can be defined
so justly by a process of contrast and comparison.
This process is objectionable when we are testing
the success of an author in the fulfilment of his own
artistic purpose it has its use, nevertheless, in a
general survey of the poetry of any given time.
Here are the poet of sympathy, the poet of cul
tured intellect, and the born vocalist of lyric song.
The first is thoroughly democratic in his expression
of the mirth and tragedy of common life. The sec
ond equally represents his era, with its excess of cul
ture, subtile intellectuality, poverty of theme, reliance
upon the beauty and wisdom of the past. His sym
pathies may be no less acute, but the popular in
stinct has deemed them loyal to his own class ; his
humanity takes little note of individuals, but regards
social and psychological problems in the abstract; as
for his genius, it is critical rather than creative. The

A POET OF THE HEART.


last of this trinity is delightful for the troubadour
quality of his minstrelsy : a dramatist and song-writer,
loving poetry for itself, possessing what the musician
would call a genuine " voice," and giving blithe, un
studied utterance to his tuneful impulses. Hood is
the poet of the crowd ; Arnold, of the closet ; Proc
ter, of the open air : > all are purely English, and
belong to the England of a very recent day.

II.
Examining the work of these minor, yet representa
tive poets, we find that of Thomas Hood so attractive
and familiar, that in his case the former qualification
seems a distinction by no wide remove from the best
of his contemporaries. He had a portion of almost
every gift belonging to a true poet, and but for re
stricted health and fortune would have maintained a
higher standard. His sympathetic instinct was espe
cially tender and alert ; he was the poet of the heart,
and sound at heart himself, the poet of humane
sentiment, clarified by a living spring of humor, which
kept it from any taint of sentimentalism. To read
his pages is to laugh and weep by turns ; to take on
human charity; to regard the earth mournfully, yet
be thankful, as he was, for what sunshine falls upon
it, and to accept manfully, as he did, each one's
condition, however toilsome and suffering, under the
changeless law that impels and governs all. Even
his artistic weaknesses (and he had no other) were
frolicsome and endearing. Much of his verse was
the poetry of the beautiful, in a direction opposite to
that of the metaphysical kind. His humor not his
jaded humor, the pack-horse of daily task-work, but
4

73

74

THOMAS HOOD.
his humor at its best, which so lightened his pack of
ills and sorrows, and made all England know him
was the merriment of hamlets and hostels around the
skirts of Parnassus, where not the gods, but Earth's
common children, hold their gala-days within the
shadow. Lastly, his severer lyrical faculty was musi
cal and sweet: its product is as refined as the most
exacting need require, and keeps more uniformly than
other modern poetry to the idiomatic measures of
English song.
Hood failed in a youthful effort to master the
drudgery of a commercial desk. He then attempted
to practise the art of engraving, but found it ruin
ous to his health. It served to develop a pleasant
knack of sketching, which was similar in quality and
after-use to Thackeray's gift in that line, and came
as readily to its owner. At last he easily drifted into
the life of a working man of letters, and figured
creditably, both as humorist and as poet, before the
commencement of the present British reign. Yet that
portion of his verse which is engrafted upon litera
ture as distinctively his own was not composed, it
will be seen, until within the years immediately pre
ceding his death. He thus occupies a niche in the
arcade along which our vision at present is directed.
His youthful career, in fact, belongs to that in
terval when people were beginning to shake off the
influence of Byron and his compeers, and to ask for
something new. It is noticeable that the works of
Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge separated themselves
from the dkbris, and greatly affected the rising genera
tion of poets, inciting a reaction, from the passionate
unrestraint of the romantic school, to the fastidious
art of which Keats was the rarest and most intuitive

HIS EARLY PRODUCTIONS.

75

master. The change was accelerated by such men as


Leigh Hunt, then at his poetic meridian, and a
clear, though somewhat gentle, signal-light between
the future and the past. Hood's early and serious
poems are of the artistic sort, evincing his adherence
to the new method, and an eager study of Shake
speare and other Elizabethan models.
At various times between 182 1 and 1830 were com HoooTs early
posed such pieces as " Hero and Leander," in the poems.
1821-30.
manner of " Venus and Adonis " ; " The Two Swans,"
" The Two Peacocks of Bedfont," and " The Plea of
the Midsummer Fairies," carefully written after the
fashion of Spenser and his teachers ; " Lycus, the Cen
taur"; numberless fine sonnets; and a few lyrics,
among which the ballad of " Fair Ines " certainly is
without a peer. Much of this verse exhibits Hood's
persistent defect, a failing from which he never
wholly recovered, and which was due to excess of
nervous imagination, that of overloading a poem
with as much verbal and scenic detail as the theme
and structure could be made to bear. Otherwise it
is very charming: such work as then commended
itself to poets, and which the modern public has been
taught to recognize. " Lycus, the Centaur," for instance,
reads like a production of the latest school ; and
Hood's children, in their " Memorials " of the poet,
justly term " The Plea of the Midsummer Fairies "
a " most artistic poem," which " has latterly been more
fairly appreciated in spite of its antiquated style."
But his own public took little interest in these fanci
ful compositions of Hood's younger muse, however
clearly they reveal the artist side of his nature, his
delicate taste, command of rhythm, and devotion to
his ideal. These traits were more acceptable in his

76

THOMAS HOOD.
shorter lyrics of that period, many of which were de
licious, and beyond his own power to excel in later
years. His ballads contributed to the magazines
and annuals, then in vogue, with which he was con
nected are full of grace, simplicity, pathos, and spirit.
All must acknowledge, with Poe, that "Fair Ines" is
perfect of its kind. Take this exquisite ballad, and
others, written at various dates throughout his life,
"It was not in the Winter," "Sigh on, sad Heart,"
" She 's up and gone, the graceless Girl," " What
can an old Man do but die?" "The Death-Bed,"
"I Remember, I Remember," "Ruth," "Farewell,
Life ! " ; take also the more imaginative odes to be
found in his collected works, such as those "To
Melancholy" and "To the Moon"; take these lyrical
poems, and give them, after some consideration of
present verse-making, a careful reading anew. They
are here cited as his lyrical conceptions, not as work
in what afterward proved to be his special field, and
we shortly may dismiss this portion of our theme.
I call these songs and ballads, poetry : poetry of the
lasting sort, native to the English tongue, and attrac
tive to successive generations. I believe that some
of them will be read when many years have passed
away ; that they will be picked out and treasured by
future compilers, as we now select and delight in the
songs of Jonson, Suckling, Herrick, and other noble
kinsmen. Place them in contrast with efforts of the
verbal school, all sound and color, conveying no pre
cise sentiment, vivified by no motive sweet with feeling
or easeful with unstudied rhythm. Of a truth, much
of this elaborate modern verse is but the curious
fashion of a moment, and as the flower of grass : " the
grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away."

A TRUE GIFT OF HUMOB.

77

begetter's
cate
Although
poemsheart,
Hood
which
hetook
were
at once
little
the gained
recognition
children
the nearest
favor
by theoftheir
delihis humorHood's

countrymen through that ready humor which formed


so large a portion of his birthright. He had versa
tility, and his measures, however lacking in strength
of imagination, exhibit humane and dramatic elements
which we miss in those of his greatest contemporary.
bells,
His fantastic
may well
image,
be garlanded
though topped
with with
rue, the
and cap
placed,
and e/Amtr?
like Garrick's,
Tragedy.
He between
had the the
veritable
Musesgiftof ofComedy
Humor,and
32.
that which makes us weep, yet smile through our
tears. But how this faculty was overworked ! and
how his verse was thinned and degraded, to suit the
caprice of a rude public, by that treacherous facility
which it seemed beyond his power rightly to control !
The
Whims
Hood's
London
andOdes
Magazine,
Oddities
and Addresses,
(1826),
and the
gave
his
pronounced
comic
him notoriety
diversions
success
as of
ina f^""0"a jester by

fun-maker, and doomed him either to starve, or to


grimace for the national amusement during the twenty
after-years of his toiling, pathetic life. The British
always will have their Samson, out of the prisonhouse, to make them sport. Tickle the ribs of those
spleen-devoured idlers or workers, in London and a
score of dingy cities ; dispel for a moment the in
sular melancholy ; and you may command the pence
of the poor, and the patronage, if you choose, of the
rich and titled. But at what a sacrifice ! The mask
of more than one Merryman has hidden a death'shead ; his path has slanted to the tomb, though
strewn with tinsel and taffeta roses, and garish with
all the cressets of the circus-ring. Whatever Hood

78

THOMAS HOOD.
might essay, the public was stolidly expecting a quip
or a jest. These were kindly given, though often
poor as the health and fortunes of the jester; and
it is. no marvel that, under the prolonged draughts
of Hood's Own and the Comic Annuals, the beery
mirth ran swipes. Even then it was just as eagerly
received, for the popular sense of wit is none too
nice, and the British commons retain their honest
youthfulness, coarse of appetite, pleased with a rattle,
tickled with a straw.
There is no more sorrowful display of metrical
literature a tribute extorted from the poet who
wrote for a living than the bulk of his comic verses
brought together in the volumes of Hood's remains.
It was a sin and a shame to preserve it, but there
it lies, with all its wretched puns and nonsense of
the vanished past, a warning to every succeeding
writer! To it might be added countless pages of
equally valueless and trivial prose. Yet what clever
work the man could do ! In extravaganzas like " The
Tale of a Trumpet" his sudden laughter flashes into
wit; and there are half-pensive, half-mirthful lyrics,
such as "A Retrospective Review," and the "Lament
for the Decline of Chivalry," thrown off no less for
his own than for the public enjoyment, of which the
humor is natural and refined: not that of our day, to
be sure, but to be estimated with the author's nation
ality and time. The "Ode to Rae Wilson, Esquire,"
though long and loosely written, is an honest, health
ful satire, that would have delighted Robert Burns.
In one sense the term " comic poetry " is a misno
mer. A poem often is just so much the less a poem
by the amount it contains of puns, sarcasm, " broad
grins," and other munitions of the satirist or farceur.

COMIC POETRY.
Yet the touch of the poet's wand glorifies the lightest,
commonest object, and consecrates everything that is
human to the magician's use. There is an imagina
tive mirth, no less than an imaginative wrath or pas
sion, and with this element Hood's most important
satirical poem is charged throughout. The " Golden
Legend " of " Miss Kilmansegg and her Precious Leg,"
as a sustained piece of metrical humor, is absolutely
unique. The flexible metre takes the reader with it,
from the first line to the last, and this is no small
achievement. The poem is utterly unhampered, yet
quite in keeping ; the satire faithful and searching ;
the narrative an audacious, fanciful story ; the final
tragedy as grotesque as that of a Flemish Dance of
Death. At first the poet revels in his apotheosis of
gold, the subject and motive of the poem : the yellow,
cruel, pompous metal lines the floor, walls, and ceil
ing of his structure ; it oozes, molten, from every
break and crevice ; the personages are clothed in it ;
threads of gold bind the rushing couplets together.
What a picture of rich, auriferous, vulgar London
life ! Passages of grim pathos are scattered here and
there, as by Thackeray in the prose satires of " Cath
erine " and " Barry Lyndon." When the murdered
Countess's " spark, called vital," has departed,
when in the morning,
" Her Leg, the Golden Leg, was gone,
And the ' Golden Bowl was broken,' "
then comes the " Moral " of the jester's tale :
"Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Bright and yellow, hard and cold,
Molten, graven, hammered, and rolled ;
Heavy to get, and light to hold;

79

8o

THOMAS HOOD.
Hoarded, bartered, bought, and sold,
Stolen, borrowed, squandered, doled :
Spurned by the young, but hugged by the old
To the very verge of the churchyard mould ;
Price of many a crime untold ;
Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold!
Good or bad a thousand-fold !
How widely its agencies vary
To save to ruin to curse to bless
As even its minted coins express,
Now stamped with the image of Good Queen Bess,
And now of a Bloody Mary."

mnd Hood.

The legend of the hapless Kilmansegg is known to


every reader. Who can forget her auspicious pedi
gree, her birth, christening, and childhood, her acci
dent, her precious leg, her fancy-ball, her marriage d
la mode, followed in swift succession by the Hogarthian pictures of her misery and death? The poem
is full of rollicking, unhampered fancy ; long as it is,
the movement is so rapid that it almost seems to
have been written at a heat, at least, can easily be
read at a sitting. Though not without those absurd
lapses which constantly irritate us in the perusal of
Hood's lighter pieces, it is the most lusty and char
acteristic of them all. Standing at the front of its
author's facetious verse, it renders him the leading
poet-humorist of his generation ; and, in a critical
review of any generation, the elements of mirth and
satire cannot be overlooked. Of course, we are now
Thackeray considering a time when the genius of Thackeray
scarcely had made itself felt and known. The graveand-gay ballads of the novelist were but the overflow
of his masterful nature ; yet so bounteous was that
overflow, so compounded of all parts which go to the
making of a Shakespearean mind, that, brief and with

POVERTY UNFRIENDLY TO ART.


out pretension as Thackeray's trifles are, more than
one of them for wit, grace, fancy, and other poetic
constituents is worth whole pages of the doggerel
by which Hood earned his bread. What the latter
did professionally the former executed with the airy
lightness of a cavalier trying his sword-blade.
Contrasting the taste revealed in Hood's lyrics with
the paltriness of his comic jingles, it would seem that
his deterioration might be due to the constant neces
sity for labor which poverty imposed upon him, and
to the fact that his labor was in the department of
journalism. Only the most unremitting toil could
support him as a magazine-writer ; he gained the ear
of the public not so much by humpr as by drollery,
and joke he must, be the sallies wise or otherwise,
or the fire would go out on the hearth-stone, and the
wolf enter at the door. In his day it was the laugh
ter inspired by the actual presence of the comedian,
upon the stage, that, in the nature of things, was
measured at its worth and paid for. A few hundred
pounds to the year were all that England gave the
weary penman who could send a smile wreathing from
Land's End to John o' Groat's.
If a poet, or aspiring author, must labor for the
daily subsistence of a family, it is well for his art
that
nalismhe; for
should
I can
follow
testify
some
thatother
after calling
the day's
than
work
jouris
over, when the brain is exhausted and vagrant, and
the lungs pant for air, and body and soul cry out for
recreation, the intellect has done enough, and there
is neither strength nor passion left for imaginative
composition. I have known a writer who deliberately
left the editorial profession, for which he was adapted
both by taste and vocation, and took up a pursuit

Poverty un
friendly to
the Must.
Cp. " Poets
ofAmer
ica": p.
268.

A uthorship
andjour-

82

THOMAS HOOD.

cp. " Poets which bore no relation to letters ; hoping that authoriat":ff. ship would proffer him thenceforth the freshness of
75. io8,
variety, that upon occasion of loss or trouble it might
be his solace and recompense, and that, with a less
jaded brain, what writing he could accomplish would
be of a more enduring kind. It is so true, however,
that one nail drives out another ! As an editor, this
person was unable to do anything beyond his news
paper work ; as a business-man, with not the soundest
health, and with his heart, of course, not fully in his
occupation, he found himself neither at ease in his
means, nor able to gain sturdier hours for literature
than vigorous journalist-authors filch from recreation
and sleep. Fortunate in every way is the aesthetic
writer who has sufficient income to support him alto
gether, or, at least, when added to the stipend earned
by first-class work, to enable him to follow art without
harassment. For want of such a resource, poets, with
their delicate temperaments, may struggle along from
year to year, composing at intervals which other men
devote to social enjoyment, rarely doing their best ;
possibly with masterpieces stifled in their brains till
the creative period is ended ; misjudged by those
whom they most respect, and vexed with thoughts of
what they could perform, if sacred common duties
were not so incumbent upon them.
Hood a
Nevertheless, if Hood's life had been one of schojoumaiist- ]astic ease, in all likelihood he would not have writpoet.
ten that for which his name is cherished. He was
eminently a journalist-poet, and must be observed in
that capacity. Continuous editorial labor, beginning
in 182 1 with his post upon The London Magazine,
and including his management of The Comic Annual,
Hood's Own, The Nrw Monthly, and, lastly, Hood's

LONDOXTS POET.
Magazine, established but little more than a year
83
before his death, this journalistic experience, doubt
less, gave him closer knowledge of the wants and
emotions of the masses, and especially of the popu
lace in London's murky streets. Even his facetious
poems depict the throng upon the walks. The sweep,
the laborer, the sailor, the tradesman, even the dumb
beasts that render service or companionship, appeal
to his kindly or mirthful sensibilities and figure in
his rhymes. Thus he was, also, London's poet, the LoudoWs
nursling of the city which gave him birth, and now Poet.
holds sacred his resting-place in her cemetery of Kensal Green. Like the gentle Elia, whom he resembled
in other ways, he loved " the sweet security of streets,"
and well, indeed, he knew them. None but such as
he The
couldrich
rightly
philanthropist
speak for or
their
aristocratic
wanderersauthor
and poor.
may
Fellowship
honestly give his service to the lower classes, and 0fthe poor.
endeavor by contact with them to enter into their
feelings, yet it is almost impossible, unless nurtured
yourself at the withered bosom of our Lady of Pov
erty, to read the language of her patient foster-chil
dren. The relation of almoner and beneficiary still
exists, a sure though indefinable barrier. Hood was
not exclusively a poet of the people, like Elliott or
Be'ranger, but one who interpreted the popular heart,
being himself a sufferer, and living from hand to
mouth by ill-requited toil. If his culture divided him
somewhat from the poor, he all the more endured
a lack of that free confession which is the privilege
of those than whom he was no richer. The genteel
poor must hide their wounds, even from one another.
Hood solaced his own trials by a plea for those
"whom he saw suffer." A man of kindred genius,

84

THOMAS HOOD.
the most potent of the band of humanitarian writers,
who, in his time, sought to effect reform by means
of imaginative art, also understood the poor, but
chiefly through the memory of his own youthful expe
riences. In after years the witchery of prose-romance
brought to Charles Dickens a competence that Hood
never could hope to acquire. Most men of robust
physical vigor, who have known privation, yield to
luxury when they achieve success, and Dickens was
no exception ; but his heart was with the multitude,
he never was quite at home in stately mansions, and,
though accused of snobbery in other forms, would
admit no one's claim to patronize him by virtue of
either rank or fortune.
We readily perceive that Hood's modes of feeling
resembled those which intensify the prose of Dickens,
though he made no approach to the latter in reputa
tion and affluent power. Could Dickens have written
verse, an art in which his experiments were, for the
most part, utter failures, it would have been marked
by wit and pathos like Hood's, and by graphic, Doresque effects, that have grown to be called melodra
matic, and that give a weird strength to " The Dream
of Eugene Aram," " The Haunted House," and to
several passages in the death-scene of " Miss Kilmansegg." Hood has nearly equalled Dickens in the
analysis of a murderer's spectral conscience :
"But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain
That lighted me to bed ;
And drew my midnight curtains round,
With fingers bloody red !
" Merrily rose the lark, and shook
The dew-drop from its wing;

HOOD AND DICKENS COMPARED.


But I never mark'd its morning flight,
I never heard it sing :
For I was stooping once again
Under the horrid thing."
The old Hall in " The Haunted House " is a coun
terpart to the shadowy grand-staircase in the Ded
lock Mansion, or to Mr. Tulkinghorn's chamber,
where the Roman points through loneliness and
gloom to the dead body upon the floor. This poem
is elaborate with that detail which, so painful and
over-prolonged, gives force to many of Dickens's
descriptive interludes, such as, for instance, the
opening chapter of " Bleak House." The poet and
the novelist were fellow-workers in a melodramatic
period, and there is something of stage effect in the
marked passages of either. Take an example from
" Miss Kilmansegg " :
"As she went with her taper up the stair,
How little her swollen eye was aware
That the Shadow which followed was double!
Or, when she closed her chamber door,
It The
was world,
shutting
and
out, its
andworldly
forevermore,
trouble.

"And when she quench'd the taper's light,


How little she thought, as the smoke took flight,
That her day was done, and merged in a night
Of dreams and duration uncertain,
Or, along with her own,
That a Hand of Bone
Was closing mortality's curtain ! "
Xn extravagance, also, Dickens and Hood resembled
each other, and it seems perfectly natural that the
fantasies of both should be illustrated by the same
Cruikshank or Phiz.
Both, also, give us pleasant

85

85

THOMAS HOOD.
glimpses of England's greensward and hedge-rows,
yet the special walk and study of each were in the
streets and alleys of London ; together they breathed
the same burdened, whispering, emotional atmosphere
of the monster town. They were of the circle which
Jerrold drew around him, the London group of hu
mane satirists and poets. Theirs was no amateur or
closet work, but the flower of zeal and fellow-craft,
which binds the workmen's hearts together, and
makes art at once an industry, a heroism, and a
vitalizing faith.
Our digression at length has brought us to the
special group of lyrics upon which Hood's fame indu
bitably rests. The manner of what I call his proper
style had been indicated long before, in such pieces
as " The Elm-Tree " and " The Dream of Eugene
Aram," of which the former is too prolonged, a stilllife painting, barren of human elements, and the
latter, as has been seen, a remarkable ballad, ap
proaching Coleridge's " Rime of the Ancient Mariner "
in conception and form. In Hood's case the intel
lectual flames shone more brightly as his physical
heat went out ; in the very shadow of death he was
doing his best, with a hand that returned to the pure
ideals of his youth, and a heart that gained increase
of gentleness and compassion as its throbs timed more
rapidly the brief remainder of his earthly sojourn. In
his final year, while editor of Hood1s Magazine, a jour
nal to which he literally gave his life, he composed
three of the touching lyrics to which I refer : " The
Lay of the Laborer," " The Lady's Dream," and
"The Bridge of Sighs." The memorable "Song of
the Shirt " was written a few months earlier, having
appeared anonymously in the preceding Christmas

'THE SONG OF THE SHIRT'


number of Punch. With regard to this poem the
instinct of the author's devoted wife, who constituted
his first public, was prophetic when she said : " Now,
mind, Hood, mark my words, this will tell wonder
fully ! It is one of the best things you ever did ! "
No other lyric ever was written that at once laid such
hold upon the finest emotions of people of every class
or nationality, throughout the whole reading or listen
ing world, for it drew tears from the eyes of princes,
and was chanted to rude music by ballad-mongers in
the wretchedest streets.
The judgment of the people has rightly estimated
the two last-named poems above their companionpieces. They are the unequalled presentment of their
respective themes, the expressed blood and agony of
"London's heart." "The Song of the Shirt" was
the impulsive work of an evening, and open to some
technical criticism. But who so cold as to criticise
it? Consider the place, the occasion, the despair of
thousands of working-women at that time, and was
ever more inspired and thrilling sermon preached by
a dying poet? With like sacredness of feeling, and
superior melody, " The Bridge of Sighs " is a still more
admirable poem. It is felicitously wrought in a metre
before almost unused, and which few will henceforth
have the temerity to borrow: "Who henceforth shall
sing to thy pipe, O thrice-lamented ! who set mouth to
thy reeds?" The tragedy of its stanzas lies at the
core of our modern life. The woes of London, the
mystery of London Bridge, the spirit of the materials
used by Dickens or by Ainsworth in a score of turbid
romances, all these are concentrated in this pre
cious lyric, as if by chemic process in the hollow of a
ring. It is the sublimation of charity and forgiveness,

87

88

THOMAS HOOD.
the compassion of the Gospel itself; the theme is
here touched once and forever ; other poets who have
essayed it, with few exceptions, have smirched their
fingers, and soiled or crushed the shell they picked
from the mud, in their very effort to redeem it from pol
lution. The dramatic sorrow which attends the lot of
womanhood in the festering city reaches its ultimate
expression in " The Bridge of Sighs " and " The Song
of the Shirt." They were the twin prayers which the
suffering poet sent up from his death-bed, and, methinks, should serve as an expiation for the errors of
his simple life.
Our brief summary of the experience and work of
Thomas Hood has shown that his more careful poetry
is marked by natural melody, simplicity, and direct
ness of language, and is noticeable rather for sweet
ness than imaginative fire. There are no strained
and affected cadences in his songs. Their diction
is so clear that the expression of the thought has no
resisting medium, a high excellence in ballad-verse.
With respect to their sentiment, all must admire the
absolute health of Hood's poetry written during years
of prostration and disease. He warbled cheering and
trustful music, either as a foil to personal distress,
which would have been quite too much to bear, had
he encountered its echo in his own voice, or else
through a manly resolve that, come what might, he
would have nothing to do with the poetry of despair.
The man's humor, also, buoyed him up, and thus was
its own exceeding great reward.
How prolonged his worldly trials were, what were
the privations and constant apprehensions of the lit
tle group beneath his swaying roof-tree, something
of this is told in the Memorials compiled by his

DISTRESS AND HEROISM.

89

daughter, and annotated by his son, the Tom Hood


of our day: an imperfect and disarranged biography,
yet one which few can read without emotion. Ill
health lessened his power to work, and kept him
poor, and poverty in turn reacted disastrously upon
his health. With all his reputation he was a literary
hack, whose income varied as the amount of writing
he could execute in a certain time. To such a man,
however, the devotion of his family, and the love of
Jane Reynolds, his heroic, accomplished wife, a
woman in every way fit to be the companion of an
artist and poet, were abundant compensation for
his patient struggle in their behalf. To the last mo
ment, propped up in bed, bleeding from the lungs, The poeCs
and
almost in the agony of death, he labored equally in a distress
heroism.
serious or sportive vein ; but while thousands were
relishing his productions, they gave no delight to the
anxious circle at home. One passage in the Memo
rials tells the whole sad story: "His own family
never enjoyed his quaint and humorous fancies, for
they were all associated with memories of illness and
anxiety. Although Hood's Comic Annual, as he him
self used to remark with pleasure, was in every home
seized upon, and almost worn out by the handling
of little fingers, his own children did not enjoy it till
the lapse of many years had mercifully softened down
some of the sad recollections connected with it."
The sorrow and anguish of the closing hours were
not without their alleviation. His last letter was writ
ten to Sir Robert Peel, in gratitude for the pension
conferred on Mrs. Hood. When it was known that
he lay dying, public and private sympathy, for which Sympathy
0f the Eng
he cared so greatly, comforted him in unnumbered lish people.
ways. His friends, neighbors, brother-authors, read-|

9b

MATTHEW ARNOLD.
ers, and admirers, throughout the kingdom, alike pro
foundly touched, gave him words of consolation as
well as practical aid. A new generation has arisen
since his death at the age of forty-six, but it is pleas
ant to remember the eagerness and generosity with
which, seven years afterward, the English people con
tributed to erect the beautiful monument that stands
above his grave. The rich gave their guineas ; the
poor artisans and laborers, the needlewomen and
dress-makers, in hosts, their shillings and pence. Be
neath the image of the poet, which rests upon the
structure, are sculptured the words which he himself,
with a still unsatisfied yearning for the affection of
his fellow-beings, and a beautiful perception of the
act for which it long should be rendered to his mem
ory, devised for the inscription : "He sang The
Song of the Shirt."

III.
From the grave of Hood we pass to observe a liv
ing writer, in some respects his antipode, who deals
with precisely those elements of modern life which
the former had least at heart. It is true that Mat
thew Arnold, whose first volume was issued in 1848,
had little reputation as a poet until some years after
Hood's decease; but up to that time English verse
was not marked by its present extreme variety, nor
had the so-called school of culture obtained a foot
hold. Arnold's circumstances have been more favor
able than Hood's, and in youth his mental discipline
was thorough ; yet the humorist was the truer poet,
although three fourths of his productions never should
have been written, and although there scarcely is a

A POET OF THE INTELLECT.


line of Arnold's which is not richly worth preserving.
It may be said of Hood that he was naturally a bet
ter poet than circumstances permitted him to prove
himself; of Arnold, that through culture and good
fortune he has achieved greater poetical successes
than one should expect from his native gifts. His
verse often is the result, not of " the first intention,"
but of determination and judgment ; yet his taste is
so cultivated, and his mind so clear, that, between the
two, he has o'erleapt the bounds of nature, and almost
falsified the adage that a poet is born, not made.
Certainly he is an illustrious example of the power
of training and the human will. Lacking the ease of
the lyrist, the boon of a melodious voice, he has, by
a tour de force, composed poems which show little
deficiency of either gift, has won reputation, and
impressed himself upon his age, as the apostle of
culture, spiritual freedom, and classical restraint.
There is a passion of the voice and a passion of
the brain. If Arnold, as a singer, lacks spontaneity,
his intellectual processes, on the contrary, are spon
taneous, and sometimes rise to a loftiness which no
mere lyrist, without unusual mental faculty, can ever
attain. His head not only predominates, but exalts
his somewhat languid heart. A poet once sang of a
woman,
" Affections are as thoughts to her,"
but thought with Arnold is poetical as affection, and
in a measure supplies its place. He has an intellect
ual love for the good, beautiful, or true, but imparts
to us a vague impression that, like a certain American
statesman, he cares less for man in the concrete than
for man in the abstract, a not unusual phenomenon
among aesthetic reformers. While admiring his de-

92

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

lineations of Heine, the De Gue'rins, Joubert, and


other far-away saints or heroes, we feel that he pos
sibly may overlook some pilgrim at his roadside-door.
Such is the effect of his writings, at this distance,
and it is by his works that an artist chiefly should be
judged.
Through the whole course of Arnold's verse one
Wanting in
lyricalflow. searches in vain for a blithe, musical, gay, or serious
off-hand poem : such, for example, as Thackeray's
"Bouillabaisse," Allingham's "Mary Donnelly," Hood's
" I Remember, I Remember," or Kingsley's " The
Sands o' Dee." Yet he can be very nobly lyrical in
certain uneven measures depending upon tone, and
which, like " Philomela," express an ecstatic sensi
bility :
" Hark ! ah, the nightingale !
The tawny-throated !
Hark ! from that moonlit cedar what a burst 1
What triumph ! hark what pain !
"Listen, Eugenia
How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves !
Again thou hearest !
Eternal Passion !
Eternal Pain!"

A rnold's
poetic the'
Ory.

In other poems, which reveal his saddest or profoundest intellectual moods, he is subjective and
refutes his own theory. For his work claims to be
produced upon a theory, that of epic or classical
objectivity, well and characteristically set forth in
the preface to his edition of 1854. Possibly this
was written shortly after the completion of some
purely objective poem, like " Sohrab and Rustum,"
and the theory deduced from the performance. An

HIS LIMITATIONS.
objective method is well suited to a man of large
or subtile intellect and educated tastes, who is
deficient in the minor sympathies. Through it he
can allow his imagination full play, and give a
pleasure to readers without affecting that feminine
instinct which really is not a constituent of his
poetic mould.
Arnold has little quality or lightness of touch. His
hand is stiff, his voice rough by nature, yet both are
refined by practice and thorough study of the best
models. His shorter metres, used as the framework
of songs and lyrics, rarely are successful ; but through
youthful familiarity with the Greek choruses he has
caught something of their irregular beauty. "The
Strayed Reveller" has much of this unfettered charm.
Arnold is restricted in the range of his affections ; but
that he is one of those who can love very loyally the
few with whom they do enter into sympathy, through
consonance of traits or experiences, is shown in the
emotional poems entitled "Faded Leaves" and "In
difference," and in later pieces, which display more
lyrical fluency, " Calais Sands " and " Dover Beach."
A prosaic manner injures many of his lyrics : at least,
he does not seem clearly to distinguish between the
functions of poetry and of prose. He is more at ease
in long, stately, and swelling measures, whose graver
movement accords with a serious and elevated pur
pose. Judged as works of art, " Sohrab and Rustum "
and " Balder Dead " really are majestic poems. Their
blank-verse, while independent of Tennyson's, is the
result, like that of the " Morte d'Arthur," of its
author's Homeric studies ; is somewhat too slow in
Balder Dead, and fails of the antique simplicity, but
is terse, elegant, and always in "the grand manner.",

93

His limita
tions.

His blankverse.

" Balder
Dead."

94

MATTHEW ARNOLD.
Upon the whole, this is a remarkable production ; it
stands at the front of all experiments in a field remote
as the northern heavens and almost as glacial and
clear. Fifty lines, which describe the burning of Balder's ship, his funeral pyre, have an imaginative
grandeur rarely excelled in the " Idyls of the King."
Such work is what lay beyond Hood's power even to
attempt ; and shows the larger mould of Arnold's intel
lect. A first-class genius would display the varying
endowments of them both.
Sohrab and Rustum is a still finer poem, because
more human, and more complete in itself. The verse
is not so devoid of epic swiftness. The powerful
conception of the relations between the two chieftains,
and the slaying of the son by the father, are tragical
and heroic. The descriptive passage at the close, for
diction and breadth of tone, would do honor to any
living poet :
" But the majestic river floated on,
Out of the mist and hum of that low land,
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,
Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste
Under the solitary moon : he flowed
Right for the Polar Star, past Orgunje,
Brimming, and bright, and large : then sands begin
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams,
And split his currents ; that for many a league
The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles,
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had
In his high mountain cradle in Pamere,
A foiled circuitous wanderer : till at last
The longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wide
His luminous home of waters opens, bright
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea."

PREFERENCE FOR THE ANTIQUE.


" Tristram and Iseult," an obscure, monotonous va
riation upon a well-worn theme, is far inferior to
either of the foregoing episodes. " The Sick King
in Bokhara " and " Mycerinus " are better works, but
Arnold's narrative poems, and the " Empedocles on
Etna," his classical drama, are studies, in an age
which he deems uncreative, of as many forms of early
art, and successively undertaken in default of con
genial latter-day themes. Their author, a poet and
scholar, offers, as an escape from certain heresies,
and as a substitute for poetry of the natural kind, a
recurrence to antique or mediaeval thought and forms.
However well executed, is this a genuine addition to
literature? I have elsewhere said that finished repro
ductions cannot be accepted in lieu of a nation's
spontaneous song.
Arnold thus explains his own position : " In the
sincere endeavor to learn and practise, amid the
bewildering confusion of our times, what is sound
and true in poetical art, I seemed to myself to find
the only sure guidance, the only solid footing, among
the ancients. They, at any rate, knew what they
wanted in Art, and we do not. It is this uncer
tainty which is disheartening, and not hostile criti
cism." This is frank and noteworthy language, but
does not the writer protest too much ? Are not his
sadness and doubt an unconscious confession of
his own special restrictions, restrictions other than
those which, as he perceives, belong to England in
her weary age, or those which, in a period of transi
tion from the phenomenal to the scientific, are com
mon to the whole literary world ? Were he a greater
poet, or even a small, sweet singer, would he stop to
reason so curiously? Rather would he chant and

95

Objective
themes.

Preface to
edition of
1854.

96

MATTHEW ARNOLD.
chant away, to ease his quivering heartstrings of
some impassioned strain.
We cannot accept his implication that he was born
too late, since by this very reflection of the unrest
and bewilderment of our time he holds his represent
ative position in the present survey. The generation
listens with interest to a thinker of his speculative
cast. He is the pensive, doubting Hamlet of modern
verse, saying of himself : " Dii me terrent, et Jupiter
hostis ! Two kinds of dilettanti, says Goethe, there are
in poetry : he who neglects the indispensable mechan
ical part, and thinks he has done enough if he shows
spirituality and feeling; and he who seeks to arrive
at poetry by mere mechanism, in which he can acquire
an artisan's readiness, and is without soul and matter.
And he adds, that the first does the most harm to
Art, and the last to himself." Quite as frankly Ar
nold goes on to enroll himself among dilettanti of the
latter class. These he places, inasmuch as they pre
fer Art to themselves, before those who, with less rev
erence, exhibit merely spirituality and feeling. Here,
let me say, he is unjust to himself, for much of his
verse combines beautiful and conscientious workman
ship with the purest sentiment, and has nothing of
dilettanteism about it. This often is where he for
sakes his own theory, and writes subjectively. " The
Buried Life," " A Summer Night," and a few other
pieces in the same key, are to me the most poetical
of his efforts, because they are the outpourings of his
own heart, and show of what exalted tenderness and
ideality he is capable. A note of ineffable sadness
still arises through them all. A childlike disciple of
Wordsworth, he is not, like his master, a law and
comfort to himself; a worshipper of Goethe, he at

MENTAL STRUCTURE AND ATTITUDE.

97

tributes, with unwitting egotism, his inability to vie


with the sage of Weimar, not to a deficiency in his
own nature, but to the distraction of the age :
" But we, brought forth and reared in hours
Of change, alarm, surprise,
What shelter to grow ripe is ours ?
What leisure to grow wise ?
" Too fast we live, too much are tried,
Too harassed, to attain
Wordsworth's sweet calm, or Goethe's wide
And luminous view to gain."
Arnold falters upon the march, conscious of a mission
too weighty for him to bear, that of spiritualizing
what he deems an era of unparalleled materialism.
The age is dull and mean, he cries,
" The time is out of joint ; O, cursed spite !
That ever I was born to set it right."
And as Hamlet, in action, was inferior to lesser per
sonages around him, he thus yields to introspection,
while protesting against it, and falls behind the bard
of a fresher inspiration, or more propitious time. In
all this we discern the burden of a thoughtful man,
who in vain longs to create some masterpiece of art,
and whose yearning and self-esteem make him loath
to acknowledge his limitations, even to himself.
In certain poems,
breathing the spirit ofo the tired Reaction
5
overscholar's query, " What is the use ? " he betrays a from
culture.
suspicion that knowledge is not of itself a joy, and
an envy of the untaught, healthy children of the wild.
Extremes meet, and this is but the old reaction from
over-culture ; the desire of the wrestler for new strength
from Mother Earth. " The Youth of Nature," " The
Youth of Man," and "The Future," are the fruit of I

98

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

these doubts and longings, and, at times, half sick of


bondage, he is almost persuaded to be a wanderer and
freeman. " The Scholar Gipsy " is a highly poetical
composition, full of idyllic grace, and equally subtile
in the beauty of its topic and thought. The poet,
dough and and his poet-friend, Arthur Hugh Clough, in their
Arnold.
wanderings around Oxford, realize that the life of the
vagrant " scholar poor " was finer than their own :
'For early didst thou leave the world, with powers
Fresh, undiverted to the world without,
Firm to their mark, not spent on other things :
Free from the sick fatigue, the languid doubt,
Which much to have tried, in much been baffled,
O Life, unlike to ours ! "
In after years Clough himself broke away somewhat
from the trammels which these lines deplore. Arnold
says of him, in "Thyrsis,"
" It irked him to be here, he could not rest.
He loved each simple joy the country yields,
He loved his mates ; but yet he could not keep,
For that a shadow lowered on the fields.
He went ! "
But even Clough made no such approach as our own
Thoreau to the natural freedom of which he was by
spells enamored. And who can affirm that Thoreau
truly found the secret of content ? Was not his ideal,
even as he seemed to clutch it, as far as ever from
his grasp ?
' Tkyrsis."
" Thyrsis," Arnold's more recent idyl, "a monody
to commemorate the author's friend," is the exqui
site complement of " The Scholar Gipsy." It is
another, and one of the best, of the successful Eng

THE CRITICAL FACULTY IN POETS.


lish imitations of Bion and Moschus ; among which
" Lycidas " is the most famous, though some question
whether Swinburne, in his " Ave atque Vale" has not
surpassed them all. Before the appearance of the
last-named elegy, I wrote of " Thyrsis " that it was
noticeable for exhibiting the precise amount of aid
which classicism can render to the modern poet. As
a threnode, nothing comparable to it had then appeared
since the " Adonais " of Shelley. If not its author's
farewell to verse, it has been his latest poem of any
note ; and, like " The Scholar Gipsy," probably ex
hibits the highest reach of melody, vigor, and imagi
nation, which it is within his power to show us.
That the bent of Arnold's faculty lies in the direc
tion rather of criticism and argument than of imagi
native literature, is evident from the increase of his
prose-work in volume and significance. Some of the
most perfect criticism ever written is to be found in
his essays, of which that "On Translating Homer"
will serve for an example. He carries easily in prose
those problems of religion, discovery, and aesthetics
which so retard his verse ; is thoroughly at home in
polemic discussion, and a most keen and resolute
opponent to all who heretically gainsay him. The
critical faculty is not of itself incompatible with im
aginative and creative power. We are indebted for
lasting aesthetic canons to great poets of various eras.
Even the fragmentary comments and marginalia of
Goethe, Byron, Landor, Coleridge, etc., are full of
point and suggestion. For one, I believe that, as able
lawyers are the best judges of a lawyer's powers and
attainments, so the painters, sculptors, musicians, and
poets are most competent to decide upon the merits
of works in their respective departments of art,

99

Prosewritings.

The criti
calfaculty
in poets.
Cp. "Poets
ofA merica " - pp.
326-338.

IOO

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.


though not always, being human, openly honest and
unprejudiced. Doubtless many lawyers will assent to
the first portion of this statement, and scout the
remainder. But, at all events, poets, like other men,
are wont to become more thoughtful as they grow
older, and I do not see that the work of the masters
has suffered for it. Arnold, however, is so much
greater as a writer of critical prose than as a poet,
that people have learned where to look for his genius,
and where for his talent and sensibility.
His essays are illuminated by his poetic imagina
tion, and he thus becomes a better prose-writer than
a mere didactician ever could be. In fine, we may
regard Matthew Arnold's poetry as an instance of what
elevated verse, in this period, can be written, with
comparatively little spontaneity, by a man whose vig
orous intellect is etherealized by culture and deliber
ately creates for itself an atmosphere of " sweetness
and light."

IV.
A wide leap, indeed, from Matthew Arnold to
" Barry Cornwall," under which familiar and mu
sical lyronym Bryan Waller Procter has had more
singers of his songs than students of his graver
pages. No lack of spontaneity here ! Freedom is
the life and soul of his delicious melodies, composed
during thraldom to the most prosaic work, yet tune
ful as the carols of a lark upon the wing. It is hard
to think of Procter as a lawyer, who used to chant
to himself in a London omnibus, on his daily jour
neys to and from the city. He is a natural vocalist,
were it not for whom we might almost affirm that

SPECIAL QUALITY OF THE SONG.


song-making, the sweetest feature of England's most
poetical period, is a lost art, or, at least, suspended
during the present reign. There never was a time
when little poems were more abundant, or more care
fully finished, but a lyric may be exquisite and yet
not possess the attributes of a successful song.
I can recall a multitude of such productions, each
well worth a place in any lyrical " treasury " ; among
them, some that are graceful, touching, refined to per
fection ; yet all addressed as much to the eye as to
the ear, to be read with tone and feeling, it may be,
but not really demanding to be sung. The special
quality of the song is that, however carelessly fash
ioned, it seems alive with the energy of music; the
voice of its stanzas has a constant tendency to break
into singing, as a bird, running swiftly, breaks into
flying, half unawares. You at once associate true
songs with music, and if no tunes have been set to
them, they haunt the mind and "beat time to noth
ing " in the brain. The spirit of melody goes hunt
ing for them, just as a dancing-air seeks and enters
the feet of all within its circuit. Procter's lays have
this vocal quality, and are of the genuine kind. To
freedom and melody he adds more refinement than
any song-writer of his time, and has a double right to
his station in the group under review.
His stanzaic poems have, in fact, the rare merit of
uniting the grace and imagery of the lyric to the
music and fashion of song. It is well to look at this
conjunction. The poet Stoddard, in a preface to his
selection of English Madrigals, pronounces the lyric
to be " a purer, as it certainly was an earlier, mani
festation of the element which underlies the song,"
and says that " there are no songs, modernly speak-

IOI

Special
quality of
the sons.

" Melodies
and Madri
gals" New
York, 1866.

102

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.


ing, in Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists,
but lyrics in abundance." His distinction between a
lyric and a song is that the one is " a simple, un
studied expression of thought, sentiment, or passion ;
the other its expression according to the mode of
the day." Unquestionably the abundant songs of
the eighteenth century, and those, even, of the gen
eration when Moore was at his prime, are greatly in
ferior as poetry to the lyrics of the early dramatists.
Yet, were not the latter songs as well, save that the
mode of their day was more delicate, ethereal, fine,
and strong? It seems to me that such of the early
lyrics as were written to music possess thereby the
greater charm. And the songs of Barry Cornwall,
beyond those of any other modern, have an excel
lence of " mode " which renders' them akin to the
melodies of Shakespeare, Marlowe, Jonson, Heywood,
Fletcher, and to the choicer treasures of Davison,
and of the composers, Byrd, Wilbye, and Weelkes.
They are, at once, delightful to poets and dear to
the singing commonalty. I refer, of course, to their
pervading character. It may be that none are so ab
solutely flawless as the Bugle-Song of Tennyson. The
melody and dying fall of that lyric are almost with
out comparison this side of Amiens' ditties in " As
You Like It" and Ariel's in "The Tempest." But
how few there are of Procter's numerous songs which
stand lower than the nearest place beneath it ! Many
of them excel it in swiftness, zest, outdoor quality,
and would be more often trolled along the mountain
side, upon the ocean, or under the greenwood-tree.
The fountain of Procter's melody has not so long
been sealed as to exclude him from our synod of the
later poets, although how strange it seems ! he

LEIGH HUNT.

103

was the schoolfellow of Byron at Harrow, and won


popular successes when he was the friend and as
sociate of Hunt, Lamb, and Keats. Born ten years
earlier than Hood, he was before the public in time
to act the prophet, and in the dedication of " The
Genealogists " predicted the humorist's later fame.
He dates back in years, not in literature, almost as
far
to discern
as Landor,
the and
new like
spirithim
of was
poetry
among
and the
to assist
foremost
in a pioneer.
giving it form. In a preface to his " Dramatic Scenes "
he tells us: "The object that I had in view, when I
wrote these scenes, was to try the effect of a more
natural style than that which has for a long time pre
vailed in our dramatic literature. I have endeavored
to mingle poetical imagery with natural emotion."
Like Landor, also, he performed some of his best
work at dates well toward the middle of this cen
tury ; in fact, it is upon songs given to the public
during the fourth and fifth decades that his influence
and fame depend. This has led me to consider him
among recent poets, rather than in his youthful atti
tude as the pupil of Leigh Hunt.
as Hunt's
a radical)
poetic
was mission
of note (taken
betweenapart
1815from
and his
1830,
career
and yames
was
he
whowas
that
became
aofpoet
a propagandist.
filled
of sweetness,
with the Without
fluency,
art-spiritmuch
and
of Keats
originality,
sensibility,
and Hunt.
1784 i8s9'

his masters, and both by precept and example was a


potent force in its dissemination. Beyond the posi
tion attained as a shining light of what was derisively
called " The Cockney School," Leigh Hunt made little
progress. He lived, it is true, until 1859, a writer
of dainty verse and most delightful prose, beloved by
the reading world, and viewed with a queer mixture

104

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.


of pity, reverence, and affection, by his younger
brethren of the craft. Procter's early studies were
influenced by Keats and Hunt, to whose work he was
attracted by affinity with the methods of their Eliza
bethan models, as opposed to those of Byron and Scott.
His nature, also, was too robust and too aesthetic
to acquire any taste for the metaphysical processes
of Wordsworth, which were ultimately to shape the
mind, even as Keats begat the body, of the idyllic
Victorian School. The fact that Procter's genius was
essentially dramatic finally gave him a position inde
pendent of Keats, and, against external restrictions,
drew him in advance of Hunt, who whatever he may
have been as critic and essayist was in some respects
the lesser poet. Nevertheless, those restrictions com
pelled Procter, as Landor was compelled, to forego the
work at which he would have been greatest, and to
exercise his gift only in a fragmentary or lyrical man
ner. He found the period, between the outlets of
expression afforded by the newspaper and the novel,
unsuited to the reception of objectively dramatic verse,
though well enough disposed toward that of an intro
spective kind. In short, Procter at this time was as
Miss Hillard has felicitously entitled his early friend,
Thomas Lovell Beddoes a " strayed singer," an
Elizabethan who had wandered into the nineteenth
century. His organization included an element of
practical common-sense, which led him to adapt him
self, as far as possible, to circumstances, and, forbear
ing a renewal of sustained and lonely explorations, to
vent his natural impulses in the " short swallow-flights
of song " to which he owes his reputation. The love
of minstrelsy is perpetual. Barry Cornwall, the song
writer, has found a place among his people, and

EARLY WRITINGS.
developed to the ramt excellence at least one faculty
of his poetic gift.
But we have, fir C, to consider him as a pupil of
the renaissance : ? poet of what may be termed the
interregnum between Byron and Tennyson, for the
Byronic passion is absolutely banished from the idyllic
strains of Tennyson and his followers, who, neverthe
less, betray the influences of Wordsworth and Keats
in wedded force. Procter's early writings were em
braced in three successive volumes of Dramatic Scenes,
etc., which appeared in 1819-21, and met with a
friendly reception. Some of the plays were headed
by quotations from Massinger, Webster, and such
dramatists, and otherwise indicated the author's choice
of models. His verse, though uneven, was occasion
ling
ally poetical
in these and
lines strong.
from " The
ThereWay
is breadth
to Conquer
of hand
" :
Moan and make music through
"The its
winds
halls, and there
The mountain-loving eagle builds his home.
But all 's a waste : for miles and miles around
There 's not a cot."
An extract from a poem entitled " Flowers " has the
beauty of favorite passages in "The Winter's Tale"
and "A Midsummer-Night's Dream," the flavor and
picturesque detail of Shakespeare's blossomy descrip
tions :
" There the rose unveils
Her breast of beauty, and each delicate bud
O' the season comes in turn to bloom and perish.
But first of all the violet, with an eye
Blue as the midnight heavens, the frail snowdrop,
Born of the breath of Winter, and on his brow
Fixed like a pale and solitary star ;
5*

io6

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.


The languid hyacinth, and wild primrose,
And daisy trodden down like modesty ;
The foxglove, in whose drooping bells the be
Makes her sweet music ; the narcissus (named
From him who died for love) ; the tangled woodbine,
Lilacs, and flowering limes, and scented thorns,
And some from whom voluptuous winds of June
Catch their perfumings."
It may be noted that Procter's early verse had an
effect upon poets who have since obtained distinction,
and who improved on the hints afforded them. Two
of the pieces in the first and second volumes, " A
Vision " and " Portraits," contain the germs of Ten
nyson's " Dream of Fair Women," and of his bestknown classical poem. The " Lines to
" and
" Lines on the Death of a Friend " bear a striking
resemblance in metre, rhythm, and technical " effects,"
to those wild and musical lyrics written long after
ward by Edgar A. Poe, "The Sleeper" and "The
City in the Sea." In several of his metrical tales,
Procter, no less than Keats and Hunt, went to that
Italian source which, since the days of Chaucer, has
been a fountain-spring of romance for the poet's use.
His " Sicilian Story " is an inferior study upon the
theme of Keats's " Isabella " ; and some of his other
themes from Boccaccio have been handled by later
poets, the story of " Love Cured by Kindness," by
Mrs. Lewes, and that of "The Falcon," by our own
Longfellow. Among his dramatic sketches, " The
Way to Conquer," "The Return of Mark Antony,"
and especially " Julian the Apostate," have admirable
scenes ; their verse displays simplicity, passion, sensuousness ; one derives from them the feeling that
their author might have been a vigorous dramatic
poet in a more suitable era. As it was, he stood in

MELODIOUS LYRICS.
the front rank of his contemporaries, not only as one
of the brilliant writers for The London Magazine, but
respected by practical judges who cater for the public
taste. His stage tragedy, Mirandola, was brought out
at the Covent Garden theatre, apparently with suc
cess. Macready, Charles Kemble, and Miss Foote
figured in the cast. It is an acting drama, with a plot
resembling that of Byron's " Parisina." A volume
of two years' later date exhibits less progress in con
structive power. It contained " The Flood of Thessaly," "The Girl of Provence," "The Letter of Boc
caccio," " The Fall of Saturn," etc., poems which
show greater finish, but little originality, and more
of the influence of Hunt and Keats. Throughout
the five books under review, the blank-verse, some
times effective, as in " Marcelia," is often jagged
and diffuse. The classical studies are not equal to
those of the poet's last-named associate. In Procter's
lyrical verses, however, we now begin to see the
groundwork of his later eminence as a writer of Eng
lishAmong
songs.the sweetest of these melodies was " Goldentressed Adelaide," a ditty warbled for the gentle child
whose after-career was to be a dream-life of poesy
and saintliness, ending all too early, and bearing to
his own the relation of a song within a song. I give
the opening stanza :
" Sing, I pray, a little song,
Neither
Mother
sad, dear
nor !very long :
It is for a little maid,
Golden-tressed Adelaide !
Therefore let it suit a merry, merry ear,
Mother dear ! "

107

io8
The poet's

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.


The poet had married, it is seen, and other chil
dren blessed his tranquil home, where life glided away
as he himself desired, gently :
" As we sometimes glide,
Through a quiet dream ! "
The most perfect lyric ever addressed by a poet
to his wife is the little song, known, through Neukomm's melody, in so many homes :
" How many summers, love,
Have I been thine ? "
The final stanza is exquisite :
"Ah! with what thankless heart
I mourn and sing !
Look, where our children start,
Like sudden Spring !
With tongues all sweet and low,
Like a pleasant rhyme,
They tell how much I owe
To thee and Time ! "
After Procter's marriage his muse was silent for a
while ; partly, no doubt, from a growing conviction
that no mission was then open to a dramatic poet ;
partly, from the necessity for close professional work,
under the domestic obligations he had assumed.
What was lost to art was gained in the happiness of
the artist's home ; and if he escaped the discipline
of learning in suffering what he taught in song, I,
for one, do not regret this enviable exception to a
very bitter rule.
The Muse cannot be wholly banished, even by the
strong felicity of wedded love. She enters again and
again, and will not be denied. Barry Cornwall's voice

THE DRAMATIC AND LYRICAL FACULTIES.


came back to him, after a moulting period ; and
although he wrote no plays, he exercised it in that
portion of dramatic composition which, like music in
every-day life, is used as a relief and beguilement,
the utterance of expressive song.
Dramatic poetry, embracing in completeness every
department of verse, seems to reach a peculiar excel
lence in its lyrical interludes. Procter says that " the
songs which occur in dramas are generally more nat
ural than those which proceed from the author in
person," and gives some reasons therefor. My own
belief is that the dramatic and lyrical faculties are
correlative, a lyric being a dramatic and musical out
burst of thought, passion, sorrow, or delight ; and
never was there a more dramatic song-writer than is
Barry Cornwall. His English Songs appeared at a
time when, setting aside the folk-minstrelsy of Scot
land and Ireland, the production of genuine lyrics
for music was, as we have seen, almost a lost art.
He declared of it, however, " The spring will re
turn ! " and was the fulfiller of his own prediction.
By the agreement of musicians and poets, his songs,
whether as melodies or lyrics, approach perfection,
and thousands of sweet voices have paid tribute to
their beauty, unconscious of the honeyed lips from
which it sprung. Mr. Stoddard than whom there
is no higher authority with respect to English lyrical
poetry judges Procter to be its "most consummate
master of modern days " : in fact, he questions
" whether all the early English poets ever produced
so many and such beautiful songs as Barry Corn
wall," and says that " a selection of their best would
be found inferior as a whole to the one hundred and
seventy-two little songs in Mr. Procter's volume,

109

no

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.


narrower in range, less abundant in measures, and in
finitely less pure as expressions of love."
There are many who would demur to this compar
ative estimate, and for whom the starry Elizabethan
lyrics still shine peerless, yet they too are charmed
by the spirit, alternately tender and blithesome, of
Procter's songs ; by their unconscious grace, change
ful as the artless and unexpected attitudes of a fair
girl; by their absolute musical quality and compre
hensive range. They include all poetic feelings, from
sweetest melancholy to " glad animal joy." Some
heartstring answers to each, for each is the fine ex
pression of an emotion ; nor is the emotion simulated
for the song's sake. Now, how different in this re
spect are Barry Cornwall's melodies from the stilllife lyrics, addressing themselves to the eye, of many
recent poets ! How assured in their audible loveli
ness! Sometimes fresh with the sprayey breeze of
ocean, and echoing the innumerous laughter of waves
that tumble round the singer's isle :
" The sea ! the sea ! the open sea !
The blue, the fresh, the ever free ! '
Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round ;
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.
" I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me;
For I was born on the open sea ! "
It is a human soul that wanders with "The Stormy

'ENGLISH SONGS:

111

Petrel," dips its pinions in the brine, and has the lib
erty of Prospero's tricksy spirit, " be 't to fly, to swim,
to dive":
" A thousand miles from land are we,
Tossing about on the roaring sea ;
From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast :
Up and down ! Up and down !
From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,
And amidst the flashing and feathery foam
The Stormy Petrel finds a home ! "
The zest and movements of these and a few kindred Fresh and
buoyant
melodies have brought them into special favor. Their music.
virile, barytone quality is dominant in the superb
" Hunting Song," with its refrain awakening the lusty
morn :
" Now, thorough the copse, where the fox is found,
And over the stream, at a mighty bound,
And over the high lands, and over the low,
O'er furrows, o'er meadows, the hunters go !
Away ! as a hawk flies full at its prey,
So flieth the hunter, away, away !
From the burst at the cover till set of sun,
When the red fox dies, and the day is done!
Hark, hark! What sound on the wind is borne?
'Tis the conquering voice of the hunter's horn.
The horn, the horn !
The merry, bold voice of the hunter's horn."
Procter's convivial glees are the choruses of robust
and gallant banqueters, and would stifle in the throat
of a sensual debauchee. The Vine Song,
" Sing ! Who sings
To her who weareth a hundred rings ? "

112

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER.


has the buoyancy of Wolfe's favorite, " How stands
the Glass around ? " Among the rest, " Drink, and
fill the Night with Mirth ! " and " King Death " are
notable, the first for its Anacreontic lightness, and
the last for a touch of the grim revelry which so fas
cinates us in " Don Giovanni," and reflects a perfectly
natural though grotesque element of our complex
mould.
In one of the many editions of Barry Cornwall's
lyrical poems I find two hundred and forty songs, of
surprising range and variety: songs of the chase, the
forest, and the sea ; lullabies, nocturnes, greetings, and
farewells ; songs of mirth and sorrow ; few martial
lays, but many which breathe of love in stanzas that
are equally fervent, melodious, and pure. Some have
a rare and subtile delicacy, so characteristic of this
poet as at once to mark their authorship. Such is
the melody, commencing
" Sit down, sad soul, and count
The moments flying " ;
such, also, " A Petition to Time " ; and such the lyric,
entitled " Life," the beautiful dirge, " Peace ! what can
Tears avail?" and "The Poet's Song to his Wife,"
. already quoted. Another class of songs, to which
earlier reference has been made, mostly composed in
a major key, may fairly be compared with the work of
other poets. Bayard Taylor's early lyrics, " The Mar
iners " and " Wind at Sea," have the same clear,
healthy ring, and his " Bedouin Song," in fine poetic
quality, is not excelled by any similar effort of the
British lyrist. Again, without knowing the author,
we might assume that Emerson had traced the royal
lines descriptive of " The Blood Horse " :

HIS OLD AGE.

"3

" Gamarra is a dainty steed,


Strong, black, and of a noble breed,
Full of fire, and full of bone.
With all his line of fathers known ;
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
But blown abroad by the pride within 1
His mane is like a river flowing,
And his eyes like embers glowing
In the darkness of the night,
And his pace as swift as light."
More than other poets, Barry Cornwall tempts the
writer to linger on the path of criticism and make
selection of the jewels scattered here and there.
Like the man in the enchanted cavern, one cannot
refrain from picking up a ruby or an emerald, though
forbidden by the compact made. The later chips
from Procter's dramatic workshop are superior to his
early blank-verse in wisdom, strength, and beauty.
It is a pity, that, after all, they are but " Dramatic
Fragments," and not passages taken from complete
and heroic plays. Bryan Waller Procter, restricted
from the production of such masterworks, at least did
what he could. For some years before his recent
death the world listened in vain for the voice of this
sweet singer. He lingered to an extreme old age :
a white-haired, silent minstrel, into whose secluded
mind the reproach would have fallen unheeded, had
the rosy-cheeked boys, whom Heine pictures, sprung
around him, placed the shattered harp in his trembling
hand, and said, laughing, " Thou indolent, gray-headed
old man, sing us again songs of the dreams of thy
youth ! "
H

" Dramatic
Frag
ments."

B. W. P.
died in Lon
don. Oct. 4,
1874.

CHAPTER

IV.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


I.
THERE are some poets whom we picture to our
selves as surrounded with aureolas ; who are
clothed in so pure an atmosphere that when we speak
of them, though with a critical purpose and in this
exacting age, our language must express that tender
fealty which sanctity and exaltation compel from all
mankind. We are not sure of our judgment : ordinary
tests fail us ; the pearl is a pearl, though discolored ;
fire is fire, though shrouded in vapor, or tinged with
murky hues. We do not see clearly, for often our
eyes are blinded with tears ; we love, we cherish,
we revere.
A spiritual
The memory and career of Elizabeth Barrett Brown
temperaing
appear to us like some beautiful ideal. Nothing
ment.
is earthly, though all is human ; a spirit is passing
before our eyes, yet of like passions with ourselves,
and encased in a frame so delicate that every fibre is
alive with feeling and tremulous with radiant thought.
Her genius certainly may be compared to those sensi
tive, palpitating flames, which harmonically rise and
fall in response to every sound-vibration near them.
Her whole being was rhythmic, and, in a time when
art is largely valued for itself alone, her utterances
were the expression of her inmost soul.

THE CHIEF OF WOMAN-POETS.


I have said that while the composite period has
exhibited many phases of poetic art, it is not difficult,
with respect to each of them taken singly, to find some
former epoch more distinguished. The Elizabethan
age surpassed it in dramatic creation, and in those
madrigals and canzonets which to transpose Men
delssohn's fancy are music without harping ; the
Protectorate developed more epic grandeur, the
Georgian era, more romantic sentiment and strength
of wing. Recent progress has been phenomenal,
chiefly, in variety, finish, average excellence of work.
To this there is one exception. The Victorian era,
with its wider range of opportunities for women, has
been illumined by the career of the greatest female
poet that England has produced, nor only England,
but the whole territory of the English language ; more
than this, the most inspired woman, so far as known,
of all who have composed in ancient or modern
tongues, or flourished in any land or time.
What have we of Sappho, beyond a few exquisite
fragments, a disputed story, the broken strings of a
remote and traditional island-lyre ? Yet, from Sappho
down, including the poetry of Southern and Northern
Europe and the whole melodious greensward of Eng
lish song, the remains of what woman are left to us,
which in quantity and inspiration compete with those
of Mrs. Browning? What poet of her own sex, ex
cept Sappho, did she herself find worthy a place
among the forty immortals grouped in the hemicycle
of her own " Vision of Poets " ? Take the volume of
her collected writings, with so much that we might
omit, with so many weaknesses and faults, and what
riches it contains ! How different, too, from other
recent work, thoroughly her own, eminently that of a

n6

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


woman, a Christian sibyl, priestess of the melody,
heroism, and religion of the modern world !

II.
What is the story of her maidenhood? Not only
of those early years which, no matter how long we
continue, are said to make up the greater portion of
our life ; but also of an unwedded period which
lasted to that ominous year, the thirty-seventh, which
has ended the song of other poets at a date when
her own so far as the world heard her had but
just begun. How grew our Psyche in her chrysalid
state ? For she was like the insect that weaves itself
a shroud, yet by some inward force, after a season, is
impelled to break through its covering, and come out
a winged tiger-moth, emblem of spirituality in its birth,
and of passion in the splendor of its tawny dyes.
Elizabeth Barrett Barrett was born of wealthy par
ents, in 1809, and began her literary efforts almost
contemporaneously with Tennyson. Apparently, for
the world has not yet received the inner history of a
life, which, after all, was so purely intellectual that
only herself could have revealed it to us, appar
ently, I say, she was the idol of her kindred ; and
especially of a father who wondered at her genius
and encouraged the projects of her eager youth.
Otherwise, although she was a rhymer at the age of
ten, how could she have published, in her seventeenth
year, her didactic Essay, composed in heroics after
the method of Pope ? Apparently, too, she had a
mind of that fine northern type which hungers after
learning for its own sake, and to which the study of
books or nature is an instinctive and insatiable de

READING AND THE IMAGINATION.


sire. If Mrs. Browning left no formal record of her
youth, the spirit of it is indicated so plainly in " Au
rora Leigh," that we scarcely need the letter :
" Books, books, books !
I had found the secret of a garret-room
Piled high with cases in my father's name ;

The first book first. And how I felt it beat


Under my pillow, in the morning's dark,
An hour before the sun would let me read!
My books !
At last, because the time was ripe,
I chanced upon the poets."
Doubtless this sleepless child was one to whom her
actual surroundings, even if observed, seemed less
real than the sights in dreamland and cloudland re
vealed to her by simply opening the magical covers
of a printed book. An imaginative girl sometimes
becomes so entranced with the ideal world as to
quite forego the billing and cooing which attend upon
the springtime of womanhood. Such natures often
awake to the knowledge that they have missed some
thing: love was everywhere around them, but their
eyes were fixed upon the stars, and they perceived it
not. This abnormal growth is perilous, and to the
feebler class of dreamers, who have poetic sensibility
without true constructive power, insures blight, lone
liness, premature decay. For the born artist, such
experiences in youth not only are inevitable, but are
the training which shapes them for their after work.
The fittest survive the test.
Miss Barrett's early feasts were of an omnivorous
kind, the best school-regimen for genius :

117

n8

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


" I read books bad and good some bad and good
At once : .
And being dashed
From error on to error, every turn
Still brought me nearer to the central truth."
A gifted mind in youth has an unconsciousness of
evil, and an affinity for the beautiful and true, which
enable it, when given the freedom of a library, to as
similate what is suited to its needs. Fact and fiction
are inwardly digested, and in maturer years the logi
cal faculty involuntarily assorts and distributes them.
Aurora reads her books,
" Without considering whether they were fit
To do me good. Mark, there. We get no good
By being ungenerous, even to a book,
And calculating profits . . so much help
By so much reading. It is rather when
We gloriously forget ourselves and plunge
Soul-forward, headlong, into a book's profound,
Impassioned for its beauty and salt of truth
'T is then we get the right good from a book."
Much of this reading was of that grave character
to which court-maidens of Roger Ascham's time were
wonted, for her juvenile " Essay on Mind " evinced a
knowledge of Plato, Bacon, and others of the world's
great thinkers : I do not say familiarity with them ;
scholars know what that word means, and how loosely
such terms are bandied. She gained that general
conception of each, similar to what we learn of a
man upon first acquaintance, and often not far wrong.
With time and occasion afterward came the more
disciplinary process of her education. Fortunate in
fluences, possibly those of her father, if we may still
follow " Aurora Leigh," guided her in the direction

HUGH STUART BOYD.

119

of studies as refining as they were severe. She read


Latin and Greek. Now, it is noteworthy that a girl's
intellect is more adroit in acquirement, not only of
the languages, but of pure mathematics, than that of
the average boy. Any one trained at the desks of a
New England high-school is aware of this. In later
years the woman very likely will stop acquiring, while
the man still plods along and grows in breadth and
accuracy. Miss Barrett became a loving student of
Greek, and we shall see that it greatly influenced her
literary progress.
Among her maturer friends was the sweetly gentle Hugh
and learned Hugh Stuart Boyd, to whom in his blind Stuart
Boyd.
ness she read the Attic dramatists, and under whose 1782- 1848.
guidance she explored a remarkably wide field of
Grecian philosophy and song. What more beautiful
subject for a modern painter than the girl Elizabeth, Herportrait
in Miss Mit " that slight, delicate figure, with a shower of dark foraVs " Rec
of
curls falling on each side of a most expressive face, ollections
a Literary
large tender eyes richly fringed by dark eyelashes, Life."
and a smile like a sunbeam," than this ethereal
creature seated at the feet of the blind old scholar,
her face aglow with the rhapsody of the sonorous
drama, from which she read of CEdipus, until
"the reader's voice dropped lower
When the poet called him blind ! "
Here was the daughter that Milton should have
had ! An oft-quoted stanza from her own " Wine of
Cyprus," addressed to her master in after years, may
be taken for the legend of the picture :
" And I think of those long mornings,
Which my Thought goes far to seek,
When, betwixt the folio's turnings,
Solemn flowed the rhythmic Greek.

120

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


Past the pane the mountain spreading,
Swept the sheep-bell's tinkling noise,
While a girlish voice was reading,
Somewhat low for afs and oCs."
Aside from repeated indications in her other writing,
this graceful poem shows the liberal extent of her
delightful classical explorations. Homer, Pindar, Anacreon, " ^Eschylus, the thunderous," " Sophocles,
the royal," " Euripides, the human," " Plato, the divine
one," Theocritus, Bion, not only among the im
mortal pagans did Miss Barrett follow hand in hand
with Boyd, but attended him upon his favorite excur
sions to those " noble Christian bishops " Chrysostom, Basil, Nazianzen " who mouthed grandly the
last Greek."
What other woman and poet of recent times has
passed through such a novitiate, in the academic
groves and at the fountain-heads of poetry and
thought ? I dwell upon Miss Barrett's culture, because
I am convinced that it had much to do with her pre
eminence among female poets. Many a past genera
tion has produced its songsters of her sex, whose
voices were stifled for want of atmosphere and train
ing. An auspicious era gave her an advantage over
predecessors like Joanna Baillie, and her culture placed
her immeasurably above Miss Landon, Mrs. Hemans,
and others who flourished at the outset of her own
career. Lady Barnard, the Baroness Nairn, Mrs.
Norton, women like these have written beautiful
lyrics ; but here is one, equally feminine, yet with
strength beyond them all, lifting herself to the height
of sustained imagination. George Sand, Charlotte
Bronte, and Mrs. Lewes have been her only com
peers, but of these the first at least in form, and

A LIBERAL SCHOLAR.
the two latter both in form and by instinct, have
been writers of prose, before whom the poet takes
precedence, by inherited and defensible prerogative.
It was a piece of good fortune that Miss Barrett's
technical study of roots, inflections, and what not was
elementary and incidental. She and her companion
read Greek for the music and wisdom of a literature
which, as nations ripen and grow old, still holds its
own, an exponent of pure beauty and the univer
sal mind. The result would furnish a potent example
for those who hold, with Professor Tayler Lewis, that
the classical tongues should be studied chiefly for the
sake of their literature. She was not a scholar, in
the grammarian's sense ; but broke the shell . of a
language for the meat which it contained. Hence
her reading was so varied as to make her the most
powerful ally of the classicists among popular au
thors. Her poetical instinct for meanings was equal
to Shelley's ; as for Keats, he created a Greece and
an Olympus of his own.
Her first venture of significance was in the field
of translation. Prometheus Bound, and Miscellaneous
Poems, was published in her twenty-fourth year. The
poems were equally noticeable for faults and excel
lences, of which we have yet to speak. The transla
tion was at that time a unique effort for a young lady,
and good practice ; but abounded in grotesque pecul
iarities, and in fidelity did not approach the modern
standard. In riper years she freed it from her early
mannerism, and recast it in the shape now left to us,
" in expiation," she said, " of a sin of my youth, with
the sincerest application of my mature mind." This
later version of a most sublime tragedy is more poet
ical than any other of equal correctness, and has the
6

121

122

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


fire and vigor of a master-hand. No one has suc
ceeded better than its author in capturing with rhymed
measures the wilful rushing melody of the tragic
chorus. Her other translations were executed for her
own pleasure, and it rarely was her pleasure to be
exactly faithful to her text. She was honest enough
to call them what they are ; and we must own that
her " Paraphrases on " Theocritus, Homer, Apuleius,
etc., are enjoyable poems in themselves, preserving
the spirit of their originals, yet graceful with that
freedom of which Shelley's " Hymn to Mercury " is
the most winsome English exemplar since Chapman's
time.
Our poet was always healthful and at ease wher
ever her classicism suggested the motive of her own
song. " The Dead Pan " is an instance of her pe
culiar utilization of Greek tradition, and in other
pieces her antique touches are frequent. Late in life,
when unquestionably failing, her eyes growing dim
and her poetic force abated, amid a peal of verses,
that sound to me like sweet bells jangled, there is no
clearer strain than that of " A Musical Instrument."
For a moment, indeed, as she sang a melody of the
pastoral god, her
"sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
Came back to dream on the river."

Her
der's.classi
A distinction between Landor's workmanship and
cism distinct
that
of Mrs. Browning was, that the former rarely
from Lan
used his classicism allegorically as a vehicle for mod
ern sentiment ; the latter, who did not write and think
as a Greek, goes to the antique for illustration of her
own faith and conceptions.

ILLNESS AND SECLUSION.


Of Miss Barrett's life we now catch glimpses through
the kindly eyes of Miss Mitford, who became her near
friend in 1836. She had entered upon a less se
cluded period, and probably the four years which fol
lowed the appearance of her " Prometheus " were as
happy as any of her maidenhood. But, always fragile,
in 1837 she broke a blood-vessel of the lungs ; and
after a lingering convalescence was again prostrated
in 1839 by the death of her favorite brother,
drowned in her sight off the bar of Torquay. Months
elapsed before she could be removed to her father's
house, there to enter upon that absolute cloister-life
which continued for nearly seven years. It was the
life of a couch-ridden invalid, restricted to a large but
darkened chamber, and forbidden all society but that
of a few dear friends. I think of her, however, in
that classic room as of one shut up in some belve
dere, where, by means of a camera, the outer world is
reflected upon the table at your breast. For she re
turned to her books as a diversion from her thoughts,
and with an eagerness that her physicians could not
restrict. Miss Mitford says that she was now " read
ing almost every book worth reading in almost every
language, and giving herself, heart and soul, to that
poetry of which she seemed born to be the priestess."
The creative faculty reasserted itself; the moon will
draw the sea despite the storms and darkness that
brood between.
In 1838 she published The Seraphim and other
Poems; in another year, The Romaunt of the Page, a
volume of ballads entitled from the one which bears
that name. In 1842 she contributed to the London
Athenceum some Essays on the Greek-Christian and
English Poets, the only specimens of her prose left

123

Prolonged
illness and
seclusion.

" The Sera


phim"
1838.
" The Ro
maunt of
the Page"
1839.

124

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Critical
to us, enthusiastic, not closely written, but showing
prose-writings, 1842. unusual attainments and critical perception. In 1844
her thirty-fifth year she found strength for the
First collec collection of her writings in their first complete
tive edition
ofherpoems, edition, which opened with "A Drama of Exile."
1844.
These volumes, comprising the bulk of her works
during her maiden period, furnish the material and
occasion for some remarks upon her characteristics
as an English poet.
Her early
Her style, from the beginning, was strikingly origi
style.
nal, uneven to an extreme degree, equally remarkable
for defects and beauties, of which the former gradually
lessened and the latter grew more admirable as she
Disadvan advanced in years and experience. The disadvan
tages ofover- tages, no less than the advantages, of her education,
were apparent at the outset. She could not fail to
be affected by various master-minds, and when she
had outgrown one influence was drawn within another,
and so tossed about from world to world. " The
Seraphim," a diffuse, mystical passion-play, was an
echo of the ^Eschylean drama. Its meaning was
scarcely clear even to the author ; the rhythm is wild
and discordant; neither music nor meaning is thor
Shelley.
oughly beaten out. I have mentioned Shelley as one
with whom she was akin, is it that Shelley, dithyrambic as a votary of Cybele, was the most sexless,
as he was the most spiritual, of poets? There are
singers who spurn the earth, yet scarcely rise to the
heavens ; they utter a melodious, errant strain that
loses itself in a murmur, we know not how. Miss
Barrett's early verse was strangely combined of this
semi-musical delirium and obscurity, with an attempt
Her ballads. at the Greek dramatic form. Her ballads, on the
other hand, were a reflection of her English studies;

EARLY WORKS AND STYLE.


and, as being more English and human, were a vast
poetic advance upon " The Seraphim." Evidently, in
these varied experiments, she was conscious of power,
and strove to exercise it, yet with no direct purpose,
and half doubtful of her themes. When, therefore,
as in certain of these lyrics, she got hold of a rare
story or suggestion, she made an artistic poem ; all
are stamped with her sign-manual, and one or two
are as lovely as anything on which her fame will rest.
My own youthful acquaintance with her works be
gan, for example, with the " Rhyme of the Duchess
May." It was different from any romance-ballad I
had read, and was to me a magic casement opening
on " faerylands forlorn " ; and even now I think, as
I thought then, that the sweetness and power of scen
ery and language, the delicious metre, the refrain of
the passing bell, the feeling and action, are highly
poetical and have an indescribable charm. The blem
ishes of this lyric are few: it is nicely adjusted to the
proper degree of quaintness ; the overture and epi
logue are exquisitely done, and the tone is maintained
throughout, an unusual feat for Mrs. Browning. I
have never forgotten a pleasure which so contrasted
with the barren sentiment of a plain New England
life, and here fulfil my obligation to lay a flower of
gratitude upon her grave. Yes, indeed : all she
needed was a theme to evoke her rich imaginings,
and I wish she had more frequently ceased from in
trospection and composed other ballads like that of
the " Duchess May."
Of her minor lyrics during this period, " IsobeFs
Child," " The Romaunt of the Page," " The Lay of
the Brown Rosary," " The Poet's Vow," etc., few
are so good as the example just cited ; but each is

12$

126

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


quite removed from commonplace, and, with its con
trasts of strength and weakness, entirely characteristic
of its author.
The effect of Miss Barrett's secluded life was visible
in her diction, which was acquired from books rather
than by intercourse with the living world ; and from
books of all periods, so that she seemed unconscious
that certain words were obsolete, or repellent even to
cultured and tasteful people. Reviewers who accused
her of affectation were partly correct ; yet many un
couth phrases and forgotten words seemed to her no
less available than common forms obtained from the
same sources. By this she gained a richer structure ;
just as Kossuth, learning our language from books,
had a more copious vocabulary than many English
orators. But she lost credit for good sense, and cer
tainly at one time had no sure judgment in the use
of terms. Since she explored the French, Spanish,
and Italian classics as eagerly as those of her own
tongue, perhaps the wonder is that her diction was
not even more fantastical. Her taste never seemed
quite developed, but through life subordinate to her
excess of feeling. So noble, however, was the latter
quality, that the critics gave her poetry their attention,
and endeavored to correct its faults of style. For a
time she showed a lack of the genuine artist's rever
ence, and not without egotism followed her wilful
way. The difficulty with her obsolete words was that
they were introduced unnaturally, and produced a
grotesque effect instead of an attractive quaintness.
Moreover, her slovenly elisions, indiscriminate mixture
of old and new verbal inflections, eccentric rhymes,
forced accents, wearisome repetition of favored words
to a degree that almost implied poverty of thought,

SERIOUS DEFECTS AS AN ARTIST.

127

such matters justly were held to be an outrage upon


the beauty and dignity of metrical art. An occa
sional discord has its use and charm, but harshness
in her verse was the rule rather than the exception.
When she had a felicitous refrain a peculiar grace
of her lyrics she frequently would mar the effect
and give a shock to her readers by the introduction
of some whimsical or repulsive image. Her passion
was spasmodic ; her sensuousness lacked substance ;
as for simplicity, it was at one time questionable
whether she was not to be classed among those who,
with a turbulent desire for utterance, really have
nothing definite to say. Her sonnet on " The Soul's Clouded
vision.
Expression " showed that the only thing clear to her
mind was that she could state nothing clearly :
" With stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound."
Metaphysical reading aggravated her natural vague
ness and what is termed transcendentalism, perilous
qualities in the domain of art. Long afterward she
herself spoke of " the weakness of these earlier verses,
which no subsequent revision has succeeded in
strengthening."
In " A Drama of Exile," where she had a more
definite object, these faults are less apparent, and
her genius shines through the clouds ; so that we
catch glimpses of the brightness which eventually
lighted her to a station in the Valhalla of renown.
During her years of illness she had added some
knowledge of Hebrew to her acquirements, and could
read the Old Testament in the original. The grander

Cp. " Poets


0fAmer
ica" : pp.
168, 169,
49. 53-

"A Drama
of Exile"
1844.

128

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


elements of her imagination received a new stimulus
from the sacred text, with which, after all, her mind
was more in sympathy than with the serene beauty
of the Greek. In the " Drama of Exile " she aimed
at the highest, and failed ; but such failures are im
possible to smaller poets. It contains wonderfully
fine passages ; is a chaotic mass, from which dazzling
lustres break out so frequently that a critic aptly
spoke of the " flashes " of her " wild and magnificent
genius," the " number and close propinquity of which
render her book one flame." My review presupposes
the reader's familiarity with her writings, so that cita
tion of passages does not fall within its intention.
Yet, let me ask what other female poet has risen to
such language as this of Adam to Lucifer ?
" The prodigy
Of thy vast brows and melancholy eyes
Which comprehend the heights of some great fall.
I think that thou hast one day worn a crown
Under the eyes of God."
And where in modern verse is there a more vigorous
and imaginative episode than Lucifer's remembrance
of the couched lion, " when the ended curse left silence
in the world " ?
" Right suddenly
He sprang up rampant and stood straight and stiff,
As if the new reality of death
Were dashed against his eyes, and roared so fierce
(Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat
Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear)
And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills
Such fast, keen echoes crumbling down the vales
Precipitately, that the forest beasts,
One after one, did mutter a response
Of savage and of sorrowful complaint

LYRICAL EFFORTS.

129

Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once,


He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height
Into the dusk of pines."
Miss Barrett in this drama displayed a true concep
tion of the sublime ; though as yet she had neither
grace, logic, nor sustained power. The most fragile
and delicate of beings, she essayed, with more than
man's audacity, to reach the infinite and soar to " the
gates of light."
That she was6*a tender woman, also, and 1 that her
hand had been somewhat trained by varied lyrical
efforts, was manifest from some of those minor pieces
through which she now began to attract the popular
regard. Among those not previously mentioned, the
tributes to Mrs. Hemans and Miss Landon, " Catarina to Camoens," " Crowned and Wedded," " Cowper's Grave," " The Sea-Mew," " To Flush, my Dog,"
and "The Swan's Nest," were more simple and open
to general esteem than their companion pieces. " An
Island," "The Lost Bower," and "The House of
Clouds " are pure efforts of fancy, for the most part
charmingly executed. " Bertha in the Lane " is treas
ured by the poet's admirers for its virginal pathos,
the sacred revelation of a dying maiden's heart, an
exquisite poem, but greatly marred in the closing. It
was difficult for the author, however fine her begin
nings, to end a poem, once begun, or to end it well
under final compulsion. "The Cry of the Human,"
with its impassioned refrain and almost agonized plea
that the ancient curse may be lightened, evinced her
recognition of the sorrows and mysteries of existence :
all these things she " kept in her heart," and ut
tered brave invectives against black or white slavery,
and other social wrongs. " The Cry of the Children,"

Successful
lyrical
efforts.

HHmanitctrian poems.

130

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


uneven as it is, takes its place beside Hood's " Song
of the Shirt," for sweet pity and frowning indignation.
In behalf of the little factory-slaves, after reading
Horne's report of his Commission, her soul took fire
and she did what she could. If the British millowners were little likely to be impressed by her imagi
native ode, with its Greek motto, it certainly affected
the minds of public writers and speakers, who could
fashion their more practical agitation after the pat
tern thus given them in the Mount.
But " Lady Geraldine's Courtship " was the ballad
and often a poet has one such which gained
her a sudden repute among lay-readers. It is said
that she composed it in twelve hours, and not im
probably ; for, although full of melodious sentiment
and dainty lines, the poem is marred by common
places of frequent occurrence. Many have classed it
with " Locksley Hall," but, while certain stanzas are
equal to Tennyson's best, it is far from displaying
the completeness of that enduring lyric. I value it
chiefly as an illustration of the greater freedom and
elegance to which her poetic faculty had now at
tained, and as her first open avowal, and a brave
one in England, of the democracy which generous
and gifted spirits, the round world over, are wont to
confess. As for her story, she only succeeded in
showing how meanly a womanish fellow might act,
when enamored of one above him in social station,
and that the heart of a man possessed of healthy
self-respect was something she had not yet found out.
Her Bertram is a dreadful prig, who cries, mouths,
and faints like a school-girl, allowing himself to eat
the bread of the Philistines and betray his sense of
inequality, and upon whom Lady Geraldine certainly

A MATURE WOMAN.

13 1

throws herself away. He is a libel upon the whole


race of poets. The romance, none the less, met with
instant popularity on both sides of the Atlantic, and
has passed into literature, somewhat pruned by later
touches, as one of its author's more conspicuous
efforts.
Miss Barrett now, at the relatively mature age of End ofher
thirty-five, appeared to have completed her intellect formative
career.
ual growth. It was a chance whether her future
should be greater than her past. Thus far I regard
her experience as merely formative. Much of her
vagueness and gloom had departed with the physical
prostration that so long had borne her down. For her
improving health showed that study and authorship,
though against the wishes of her attendants, were the
best medicine for a body and mind diseased.
As the scent of the rose came back " above the
mould," she was to emerge upon a new life, different
from that which we hitherto have considered as the
day is from the night. She was not to be enrolled
among the mournful sisterhood of women, who
"sit still
On winter nights by solitary fires
And hear the nations praising them far off."
The dearest common joys were yet to be hers, and
that full development which a woman's genius needs
to make it rounded and complete. There is a pretty
story of her first meeting with the poet Browning,
based upon the lines referring to him in " Lady Geraldine's Courtship." This, however, is not credited
by Theodore Tilton, her American editor, who wrote
the Memorial prefixed to the collection of her " Last
Poems." Four lyrics, thrown off at this time, en-

Rotert
Browning
"Memo
rial," by
Theodore
Tilton, 1863.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


titled "Life and Love," "A Denial," "Proof and
Disproof," and "Inclusions," go far to show Miss
Barrett's humility, and inability to comprehend the
happiness which had come to her. But, nevertheless,
the poet wooed and won her; and in 1846, her
thirty-seventh year, she was taken from her couch to
the altar, and at once borne away by her husband
from her native land. Some facts in my possession
with respect to this event have too slight a bearing
upon the record of her literary achievements to war
rant their insertion here. It is well known that the
marriage was opposed by her father, but she builded
better than he knew. Her cloister-life of maiden
hood in England was at an end. Fifteen happy and
illustrious years in Italy lay before her ; and in her
case the proverb Coslum, non animum, was unful
filled. Never was there a more complete transmuta
tion of the habits and sympathies of life than that
which she experienced beneath the blue Italian skies.
Still, before all and above all, her refined soul re
mained in allegiance to the eternal Muse.

III.
He is but a shallow critic who neglects to take
into his account of a woman's genius a factor repre
senting the master-element of Love. The chief event
in the life of Elizabeth Barrett was her marriage, and
causes readily suggest themselves which might deter
mine the most generous parent to oppose such a step
on her part. The dedication of her edition of 1844
shows how close was the relation existing between
her father and herself, and I am told by one who
knew her for many years, that Mr. Barrett " was a

EFFECT OF LOVE UPON HER GENIUS.


man of intellect and culture, and she had been his
pride, as well as the light of his eyes, after he be
came a widower." To such a parent, now well in
the vale of years, a marriage which was to lift his
fragile daughter from the couch to which she had
been bound as a picture to its frame must have
seemed a rash experiment, and a cruel blow to him
self, however eminent and devoted the suitor who
had claimed her. But when the long-closed tide-ways
of a woman's heart are opened, the torrent comes
with double force at last, sweeping kith and kin
away by Nature's inexorable law. If the old West
India merchant had not afterwards acted with utter
selfishness in respect to the marriage of another
daughter, I should be disposed to estimate his wounded
love for Elizabeth, as she herself did, by his stead
fast refusal, despite her " frequent and heart-moving "
appeals, to be reconciled to her throughout the re
mainder of his darkened life.
Wedlock was so thoroughly a new existence to her,
that her kindred well might fear for the result. A
veritable Lady of Shalott, she now entered the open
highways of a peopled world. She left a polar region
of dreams, solitude, introspection, for the equatorial
belt of outer and real life. The beneficent sequel
shows how wise are the instincts of a refined nature.
To Mrs. Browning, love, marriage, travel, were happi
ness, desire of life, renewed bodily and spiritual
health ; and when, in her fortieth year, the sacred
and mysterious functions of maternity were given her
to realize, there also came that ripe fruition of a gen
ius that hitherto, blooming in the night, had yielded
fragrant and impassioned, but only sterile flowers.
The question of an artist's married life, it seeans

133

Herfather'*
opposition
to the nup
tials.

Complete
woman/too

134

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

Relations of to me, has wholly different bearings when considered


art and
marriage from the opposite standing-points of the two sexes.
A discerning writer has recently mentioned an artist
whose view was, that a man devoted to art might
marry "either a plain, uneducated woman devoted to
household matters, or else a woman quite capable of
entering into his artistic life " ; but no one between
the two extremes. The former would be less perilous
than to marry a daughter of the Philistines, "equally
incapable of comprehending his pursuits, but much
more likely to interfere with them." Yet in behalf
of a man of artistic genius and sensibility, who is
born to a career if he chooses to pursue it, I would
not accept even the first-named alternative, unless he
has sufficient wealth to insure him perfect indepen
dence or seclusion. An author's growth, and the hap
piness of both parties, are vastly imperilled by his
union with the most affectionate of creatures, if she
has an inartistic nature and a dull or commonplace
mind. The Laureate makes the simple wife exclaim :
"I cannot understand: I love!" but there is no per
fect love without mutual comprehension ; at the best,
a wearisome, unemotional forbearance takes its place.
On the one part jealousy, active or disguised, of the
other's wider range, too often exerts a restrictive in
fluence, by which the art-impulse, and the experiences
it should feed upon, are modified or repressed. It
is a law of psychological mathematics that the con
stant force of dulness will in the end overcome any
varying force resisting it ; and when Pegasus can be
driven in harness, one generally finds him yoked with
a brood-mare, ay, and broken-in when young and
more or less defenceless.
Again, we so readily persuade ourselves to lapse

RELATIONS OF ART AND MARRIAGE.


from the efforts of creative labor, when temptation
puts on the specious guise of duty ! The finest kind
of art that possessing originality is unremunerative
for years ; and who has the courage to pursue it,
while responsible for the conventional ease and hap
piness of those who possibly regret that he is not so
practical as other men, and look with distrust upon
his habits of life and labor? Ordinary people can
more easily attain to that perfect mating which is the
sum of bliss. But let an artist marry art, and be true
to it alone, unless by some rare chance he can find a
companion whose soul is kindred with his own, who
can sympathize with his tastes, and aid him with tact
and circumstance in his social and professional career.
If she has genius of her own, and her own purposes
in any department of art, then all obligations can be
entirely mutual, and under favorable auspices the high
est wedded felicity should be the result.
The relations of art and marriage, where the devel
opment of female genius is concerned, are of a dis
tinctive character, and must be so considered. It is
no doubt true that a woman, also, can only arrive at
extreme happiness by wedlock founded upon entire
congeniality of mind and purpose ; and yet there are
conditions under which it may become essential to her
complete development as an artist that she should
marry out of her own ideal, rather than not be mar
ried at all. So closely interwrought are her physical
and spiritual existences, that otherwise the product of
her genius may be little more than a beautiful frag
ment at the most. We must therefore esteem Mrs.
Browning doubly fortunate, and protected by the gods
themselves. For marriage not only had given her, by
one of Nature's charming miracles, a precious lease

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


The wedded of life, but had united her with a fellow-artist whose
poets.
disposition and pursuits were in absolute harmony
with her own, the one man in the world whom
she would have chosen, yet who sought her out, and
deemed it his highest joy to possess her as a wife,
and cherish her as companion, lover, and friend. In
this life of incongruities it is encouraging to find such
an instance of the serene fitness of things. The world
is richer for their union, than which none more dis
tinguished is of record in the annals of authorship.
The ten years following the date of Mrs. Brown
ing's marriage were the noonday of her life, and three
master-works, embraced in this period, represent her
at her prime. Casa Guidi Windows appeared in 185 1,
the same volume including the matchless " Sonnets
from the Portuguese." Aurora Leigh was published
in 1856. None of her later or earlier compositions
were equal to these in scope, method, and true poet
ical value.
At first the influence of her new life was of a com
plex nature. It opened a sealed fountain of love
within her, which broke forth in celestial song: it
gave her a land and a cause to which she thoroughly
devoted her woman's soul ; finally, a surprising ad
vance was evident in the rhythm, language, and all
other constituents of her metrical work. The Saxon
English, which she hitherto had quarried for the ba
sis of her verse, now became conspicuous through
out the whole structure. Her technical gain was
partly due to the stronger themes which now bore up
her wing, and partly, I have no doubt, to the com
panionship of Robert Browning. Even if he did not
directly revise her works, neither could fail to profit
by the other's genius and experience; and the blem

'SONNETS FROM THE PORTUGUESE.'

137

ishes of his wife's earlier style were such as Browning


at this time would not relish, for they were of a dif
ferent kind from his own. Besides, we are sensitive
to faults in those we love, while committing them our
selves as if by chartered right.
minds
subjective
tuguese
I amusas,
disposed
ofpoetry
if annotEnglish
tointhe
consider
our
finest,
prototype,
literature.
the
a portion
Sonnets
andTheir
itfrom
ofis the
no
form
thefinest
sacri
Forre- s^*"
'pu'!u
"Sonnets

lege to say that their music is showered from a higher


and purer atmosphere than that of the Swan of Avon.
We need not enter upon cold comparison of their
respective excellences ; but Shakespeare's personal
poems were the overflow of his impetuous youth : his
broader vision, that took a world within its ken, was
absolutely objective ; while Mrs. Browning's Love Son
nets are the outpourings of a woman's tenderest emo
tions, at an epoch when her art was most mature,
and her whole nature exalted by a passion that to
such a being comes but once and for all. Here, in
deed, the singer rose to her height. Here she is ab
sorbed in rapturous utterance, radiant and triumphant
with her own joy. The mists have risen and her
sight is clear. Her mouthing and affectation are for
gotten, her lips cease to stammer, the lyrical spirit
has full control. The sonnet, artificial in weaker
hands, becomes swift with feeling, red with a " veined
humanity," the chosen vehicle of a royal woman's
vows. Graces, felicities, vigor, glory of' speech, here
are so crowded as to tread each upon the other's
sceptred pall. The first sonnet, equal to any in our
tongue, is an overture containing the motive of the
canticle ; " not Death, but Love " had seized her
unaware. The growth of this happiness, her worship

138

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


of its bringer, her doubts of her own worthiness, are
the theme of these poems. She is in a sweet and,
to us, pathetic surprise at the delight which at last
had fallen to her :
"The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers."
Never was man or minstrel so honored as her "most
gracious singer of high poems." In the tremor of her
love she undervalued herself, with all her feebleness
of body, it was enough for any man to live within the
atmosphere of such a soul ! In fine, the Portuguese
Sonnets, whose title was a screen behind which the
singer poured out her full heart, are the most exqui
site poetry hitherto written by a woman, and of them
selves justify us in pronouncing their author the great
est of her sex, on the ground that the highest
mission of a female poet is the expression of love,
and that no other woman approaching her in genius
has essayed the ultimate form of that expression. An
analogy with " In Memoriam " may be derived from
their arrangement and their presentation of a single
analytic theme ; but Tennyson's poem though ex
hibiting equal art, more subtile reasoning and com
prehensive thought is devoted to the analysis of
philosophic Grief, while the Sonnets reveal to us that
Love which is the most ecstatic of human emotions
and worth all other gifts in life.
Mrs. Browning's more than filial devotion to Italy
has become a portion of the history of our time. In
dependently of her husband's enthusiasm, everything
in the aspect and condition of the country of her
adoption was fitted to arouse this sentiment. It be
came a passion with her; she identified herself with

'CASA GUIDI WINDOWS?

139

the Italian cause, and for fourteen years her oratory


in Casa Guidi was vocal with the aspiration of that
fair land struggling to be free. Its beauty and sorrow
enthralled her ; its poetry spoke through her voice ;
its grateful soil finally received her ashes, and will
treasure them for many an age to come.
Nothing can be finer than the burst of song at the
''Casa
opening of her Italian poem,
Guidi Win
dows"
1851.
"I heard last night a little child go singing,
'Neath Casa Guidi windows, by the church,
O Mia liberta, O Mia!"
unless it be the passages which begin and close the
second portion of the same work, composed after an
interval of three years, when the hope of the first
exultant outbreak was for the time obscured. Be
tween the two extremes the chant is eloquently sus
tained, and is our best example of lucid, sonorous
English verse composed in a semi-Italian rima. While
full of poetry, its increase of intellectual vigor shows
how a singer may be lifted by the occasion and ca
pacity for pleading a noble cause. Deep voice, strong
heart, fine brain, the three must go together in
the making of a great poet. " Casa Guidi Windows "
won a host of friends to Italy, and gained for its
devoted author an historic name. During the inter
val mentioned she had given birth to the child whose
presence was the awakening of a new prophetic gift :
" The sun strikes through the windows, up the floor ;
Stand out in it, my own young Florentine,
Not two years old, and let me see thee more !
It grows along thy amber curls to shine
Brighter than elsewhere. Now look straight before,
And fix thy brave blue English eyes on mine,
And from thy soul, which fronts the future so

140

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


With unabashed and unabated gaze,
Teach me to hope for what the Angels know
When they smile clear as thou dost ! "
While experience of motherhood now had perfected
her woman's nature, Mrs. Browning was also at the
zenith of her lyrical career. Her minor verses of
the period are admirable. She revised her earlier
poetry for the edition of 1856, and Mr. Tilton has
pointed out some of her fastidious and usually suc
cessful emendations. It was the happiest portion of
her life, as well as the most artistic. The sunshine
of an enviable fame enwreathed her ; rare and gifted
spirits, wandering through Italy, were attracted to her
presence and paid homage to its laurelled charm.
Hence, as a secondary effect of her marriage, her
knowledge of the world increased ; she became a keen
though impulsive observer of men and women, and
of the thought and action of her own time. Few
social movements escaped her notice, whether in Eu
rope or our own unrestful land ; her instincts were
in favor of agitation and reform, and her imagination
was ever looking forward to the Golden Year. And
it was now that, summoning all her strength alas !
how unequal was her frail body to the tasks laid upon
it by the aspiring soul! with heroic determination
and most persistent industry, she undertook and com
pleted her capo d'opera, the poem which, in dedicat
ing to John Kenyon, she declares to be the most
mature of her works, " and the one into which my
highest convictions upon Life and Art have entered."
If Mrs. Browning's vitality had failed her before
the production of " Aurora Leigh," a poem com
prising twelve thousand lines of blank-verse, her
generation certainly would have lost one of its repre

'AURORA LEIGH.'

141

sentative and original creations : representative in a


versatile, kaleidoscopic presentment of modern life
and issues ; original, because the most idiosyncratic
of its author's poems. An audacious, speculative
freedom pervades it, which smacks of the New World
rather than the Old. Tennyson, while examining the
social and intellectual phases of his era, maintains a
judicial impassiveness ; Mrs. Browning, with finer
dramatic insight, the result of intense human sym
pathy, enters into the spirit of each experiment, and
for the moment puts herself in its advocate's position. A charac
" Aurora Leigh " is a mirror of contemporary life, teristic pro
duction.
while its learned and beautiful illustrations make it,
almost, a handbook of literature and the arts. As a
poem, merely, it is a failure, if it be fair to judge
it by accepted standards. One may say of it, as of
Byron's " Don Juan " (though loath to couple the two
works in any comparison), that, although a most
uneven production, full of ups and downs, of capri
cious or prosaic episodes, it nevertheless contains
poetry as fine as its author has given us elsewhere,
and enough spare inspiration to set up a dozen smaller
poets. The flexible verse is noticeably her own, and
often handled with as much spirit as freedom ; it is
terser than her husband's, and, although his influence
now began to grow upon her, is not in the least ob
scure to any cultured reader. The plan of the work
is a metrical concession to the fashion of a time which
has substituted the novel for the dramatic poem. Con
sidered as a " novel in verse," it is a failure by lack
of either constructive talent or experience on the
author's part. Few great poets invent their myths ;
few prose character-painters are successful poets ; the
epic songsters have gone to tradition for their themes,

142

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


the romantic to romance, the dramatic to history and
incident. Mrs. Browning essayed to invent her whole
story, and the result was an incongruous framework,
covered with her thronging, suggestive ideas, her
flashing poetry and metaphor, and confronting you by
whichever gateway you enter with the instant presence
of her very self. But either as poem or novel, how
superior the whole, in beauty and intellectual power,
to contemporary structures upon a similar model,
which found favor with the admirers of parlor ro
mance or the lamb's-wool sentiment of orderly British
life! As a social treatise it is also a failure, since
nothing definite is arrived at. Yet the poet's sense
of existing wrongs is clear and exalted, and if her
exposition of them is chaotic, so was the transition
period in which she found herself involved. Upon
the whole, I think that the chief value and interest of
" Aurora Leigh " appertain to its marvellous illustra
tions of the development, from childhood on, of an
aesthetical, imaginative nature. Nowhere in literature
is the process of culture by means of study and pas
sional experience so graphically depicted. It is the
metrical and feminine complement to Thackeray's
" Pendennis " ; a poem that will be rightly appreci
ated by artists, thinkers, poets, and by them alone.
Landor, for example, at once received it into favor,
and also laid an unerring finger upon its weakest
point : "I am reading a poem," he wrote, " full of
thought and fascinating with fancy. In many pages
there is the wild imagination of Shakespeare
I had no idea that any one in this age was capa
ble of such poetry
There are, indeed, even
here, some flies upon the surface, as there always
will be upon what is sweet and strong. I know not

HER PERIOD OF DECLINE.


yet what the story is. Few possess the power of
construction."
The five remaining years of Mrs. Browning's life
were years of self-forgetfulness and devotion to the
heroic and true. Her beautiful character is exhibited
in her correspondence, and in the tributes of those
who were privileged to know her. What poetry she
wrote is left to us, and I am compelled to look upon
it as belonging to her period of decline. However
fine its motive, " we are here," as M. Taine has said,
to judge of the product alone, and " to realize, not an
ode, but a law." Physical debility was the main cause
of this lyrical falling off. Her exhausted frame was
now, more than ever, what Hillard had pronounced it,
" nearly a transparent veil for a celestial and immor
tal spirit." Her feelings were again more imperative
than her mastery of art ; her hand trembled, her voice
quavered with that emotion which is not strength.
She now, as I have said, unconsciously began to yield
to the prolonged influence of her husband's later style,
and it affected her own injuriously, though it must
be acknowledged that her poetry acquired, toward the
last, a new and genuine, but painful, dramatic quality.
Her " Napoleon III. in Italy," and the minor lyrics
upon the Italian question, are submitted in evidence
of the several points just made. Some of her later
poems were contributed to a New York newspaper,
with whose declared opinions she was in sympathy,
and which was the mouthpiece of her warmest Amer
ican admirers ; and, in the effort to promptly meet her
engagements, she tendered unrevised and faulty work.
At intervals the production of some gracious, health
ful hour would be a truly effective poem, and such
lyrics as " De Profundis," "A Court Lady," "The

Mrs.
Browning's
period of
decline.

Secondary
influence of
her married
life.

" Poems be
fore Con
gress" 186a
The Inde
pendent,"

144

"Last
Poems"
18O0-1861.

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


Forced Recruit," " Parting Lovers," and " Mother and
Poet," made the world realize how rich and tuneful
could be the voice still left to her. One evening it
was my fortune to listen to a recitation of the lastnamed poem, from the lips of a beautiful girl who
looked the very embodiment of the lyric Muse, and I
was struck with the truthfulness and strength displayed
in the poet's dramatic conception of the mingled pa
triotism and anguish in a bereaved Italian mother's
heart. But the dominant roughness which too gen
erally pervades her Last Poems shows how completely
she now had accepted Browning's theory of entire
subordination, in poetry, of the art to the thought,
and his method of giving expression to the latter, no
matter how inchoate, at any cost to the finish and
effectiveness of the work in hand.

IV.
mate ofMrs,
Final
esti'
In a former chapter I wrote of " an inspired singer,
Browning's if there ever was one, all fire and air, her song
genius.
and soul alike devoted to liberty, aspiration, and love."
The career of this gifted woman has now been traced.
In conclusion, let us attempt to estimate her genius
and discover the position to be assigned to her
among contemporary poets.
Her art.
And first, with regard to her qualities as an
artist. She was thought to resemble Tennyson in
some of her early pieces, but this was a mistake, if
anything beyond form is to be considered. In read
Tennyson ing Tennyson you feel that he drives stately and
and Mrs.
Browning. thoroughbred horses, and has them always under
control ; that he could reach a higher speed at pleas
ure ; while Mrs. Browning's chargers, half-untamed,

FINAL ESTIMATE OF HER GENIUS.

145

prance or halt at their own will, and often bear her


away over some rugged, dimly lighted tract. Her
verse was the perfect exponent of her own nature, in
cluding a wide variety of topics in its range, but with
the author's manner injected through every line of
it. Health is not its prominent characteristic. Mrs.
Browning's creative power was not equal to her ca
pacity to feel ; otherwise there was nothing she might
7
J
Over-posses
not have accomplished.
She evinced over-possession,
sion.
and certainly had the contortions of the Sibyl, though
not lacking the inspiration. We feel that she must
have expression, or perish, a lack of restraint com
mon to female poets. She was somewhat deficient in
aesthetic conscientiousness, and we cannot say of her
works, as of Tennyson's, that they include nothing
which has failed to receive the author's utmost care.
She had that distrust of the " effect " of her produc Incertitude.
tions which betrays a clouded vision ; and in truth,
much of her vaguer work well might be distrusted.
Her imagination was radiant, but seldom clear; it was
the moon obscured by mists, yet encircled with a glo
rious halo.
Her metres came by chance, and this often to her
detriment ; she rarely had the patience to discover
those best adapted to her needs, but gave voice to the
first strain which occurred to her. Hence she had a
spontaneity which is absent from the Laureate's work. Spontaneity.
This charming element has its drawbacks : she found
herself hampered by difficulties which a little fore
thought would have avoided, and her song, though as
fresh, was too often as purposeless, as that of a forestbird. There is great music in her voice, but one
wishes that it were better trained. She had a gift of Her remelodious and effective refrains : " The Nightingales, frains.

146

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


the Nightingales," "Margret, Margret," "You see
we're tired, my Heart and I," "Toll slowly!" "The
River floweth on," "Pan, Pan is dead!" these and
other examples captivate the memory, but occasion
ally the burden is the chief sustainer of the song.
One of her repetends, " He giveth His beloved Sleep,"
is the motive of an almost celestial lyric, faultless in
holy and melodious design. It is a poem to read by
the weary couch of some loved one passing away,
and doubtless in many a heart is already associated
with
Hermemories
spontaneous
that and
"lieexhaustless
too deep for
command
tears." of words
gave her a large and free style, but likewise a danger
ous facility, and it was only in rare instances, like the
one just cited, that she attained to the strength and
sweetness of repose. Her intense earnestness spared
her no leisure for humor, a feature curiously absent
from her writings : she almost lacked the sense of the
ludicrous, as may be deduced from some of her twoword rhymes, and from various absurdities solemnly
indulged in. But of wit and satire she has more
than enough, and lashes all kinds of tyranny and
hypocrisy with supernal scorn. It is perhaps due
to her years of indoor life that the influence of land
scape-scenery is not more visible in her poetry. Her
girlhood, nevertheless, was partly spent in Hereford
shire, among the Malvern Hills, and we find in "Au
rora Leigh," and in some of her minor pieces, not
only reminiscences of that region, but other landscape,
both English and Italian, executed in a broad and
admirable manner. But when she follows the idyllic
method, making the tone of the background enhance
the feeling of a poem, she uses by preference the
works of man rather than those of Nature : architect

THE MOST BELOVED OF POETS.


ure, furniture, pictures, books above all, rather than
water, sky, and forest. Men and women were the
chief objects of her regard, her genius was more
dramatic than idyllic, and lyric first of all.
The instinct of worship and the religion of human
ity were pervading constituents of Mrs. Browning's
nature, and demand no less attention than the love
which dictated her most fervent poems. A spiritual
trinity, of zeal, love, and worship, presided over her
work. If in her outcry against wrong she had noth
ing decisive to suggest, she at least sounded a clarion
note for the incitement of her comrades and succes
sors, and this was her mission as a reformer. Re
ligious exaltation breathes through every page of her
compositions. Her eulogist aptly called her the Blaise
Pascal of women, and said that her books were prayerbooks. She had a profound faith in Christian revela
tion, interpreted in its most catholic sense. Her
broad humanity and religion, her defence of her sex,
her subtile and tender knowledge of the hearts of
children, her abnegation, hope, and faith, seemed the
apotheosis of womanhood and drew to her the affec
tion of readers in distant lands. She was the most
beloved of minstrels and women. Jean Paul said of
Herder that he was less a poet than a poem, but in
Mrs. Browning the two were blended : she wrote her
self into her works, and I have closely reviewed her
experience, because it is inseparable from her lyrical
career. The English love to call her Shakespeare's
Daughter, and in truth she bears to their greatest
poet the relation of Miranda to Prospero. Her deli
cate genius was purely feminine and subjective, attri
butes that are made to go together. Most introspective
poetry, in spite of Sidney's injunction, wearies us,

147

148

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.


because it so often is the petty or morbid sentiment
of natures little superior to our own. Men have more
conceit, with less tact, than women, and, as a rule,
when male poets write objectively they are on the
safer side. But when an impassioned woman, yearn
ing to let the world share her poetic rapture or grief,
reveals the secrets of her burning heart, generations
adore her, literature is enriched, and grosser beings
have glimpses of a purity with which we invest our
conceptions of disenthralled spirits in some ideal
sphere.
I therefore regard Mrs. Browning as the representa
tive of her sex in the Victorian era, and a luminous
example of the fact that " woman is not undeveloped
man, but diverse " ; as the passion-flower of the cen
tury ; the conscious medium of some power beyond
the veil. For, if she was wanting in reverence for
the form and body of the poet's art, she more than
all her tuneful brethren revered the poet's inspiration.
To her poets were
" the only truth-tellers now left to God ;
The only speakers of essential truth,
Opposed to relative, comparative,
And temporal truths ; the only holders by
His sun-skirts."
And this in a period when technical refinement has
caused the mass of verse-makers to forget that art
is vital chiefly as a means of expression. Like her
Hebrew poets, she was obedient " to the heavenly
vision," and I think that the form of her religion,
which was in sympathy with the teachings of Emanuel
Swedenborg, enables us clearly to understand her
genius and works. I have no doubt that she surren
dered herself to the play of her imagination, as if

DEATH OF THE SIBYL.


some angelic voice were speaking through her, and
of what other modern poet can this be said ? With
equal powers of expression, such a faith exalts the
bard to an apocalyptic prophet, to the consecrated
interpreter, of whom Plato said in " Ion," " A poet
is a thing light, with wings, and unable to compose
poetry until he becomes inspired and is out of his
sober senses, and his imagination is no longer under
his control ; for he does not compose by art, but
through a divine power."
At the close of the first summer month of 1861, a
memorable year for Italy, the land of song was free,
united, once more a queen among the nations ; but
the voice of its sweetest singer was hushed, the golden
harp was broken ; the sibylline minstrel lay dying in
the City of Flowers. She was at the last, as ever,
the enraptured seer of celestial visions. Some efflux
of imperishable glory passed before her eyes, and she
said that it was beautiful. It seemed, to those around
her, as if she died beholding
" in jasper-stone as clear as glass,
The first foundations of that new, near Day
Which should be builded out of Heaven to God."

149

Dud in
Florence,
June 29,
1861.

CHAPTER

V.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

THAT a new king should arise " over Egypt, which


knew not Joseph," was but the natural order
of events. The wonder is that nothing less than the
death of one Pharaoh, and the succession of another,
could oust a favorite from his position. Statesman
or author, that public man is fortunate who does not
find himself subjected to the neglectful caprices of his
own generation, after some time be past and the dura
tion of his influence unusually prolonged. There is
a law founded in our dread of monotony, in that
weariness of soul which we call ennui, the spiritual
counterpart of a loathing which even the manna that
fell from heaven at last bred in the Israelites : a law
that affects, as surely as death, statesmen, moralists,
heroes, and equally the renowned artist or poet.
The law is Nature's own, and man's perception of it
is the true apology for each fashion as it flies. But
Nature, with all her changes, is secure in certain
noble, recurrent types ; and so there are elevated
modes of art, to which we sometimes not unwillingly
bid farewell, knowing that after a time they will re
turn, and be welcome again and forever.
At present we have only to observe the working of
this law with respect to the acknowledged leader, by

LAW OF CHANGE IN PUBLIC TASTE.


influence and laurelled rank, of the Victorian poetic
hierarchy. He, too, has verified in his recent experi
ence the statement that, as admired poets advance in
years, the people and the critics begin to mistrust the
quality of their genius, are disposed to revise the laud
atory judgments formerly pronounced upon them, and,
finally, to claim that they have been overrated, and are
not men of high reach. Such is the result of that long
familiarity whereby a singer's audience becomes some
what weary of his notes, and it is exaggerated in
direct ratio with the potency of the influence against
which a revolt is made. In fact, the grander the
success the more trying the reaction. It is what the
ancients meant by the envy of the gods, unto which
too fortunate men were greatly subjected. Alternate
periods of favor and rejection not only follow one
another in cycles, by generations, or by centuries
even ; but the individual artist, during a long career,
will find himself tested by minor perturbations of the
same kind, varying with his successive achievements,
and the varying conditions of atmosphere and time.
The influence of Alfred Tennyson has been almost
unprecedentedly dominant, fascinating, extended, yet of
late has somewhat vexed the public mind. Its repose
ful charm has given it a more secure hold upon our
affections than is usual in this era, whose changes
are the more incessant because so much more is
crowded into a few years than of old. Even of this
serene beauty we are wearied ; a murmur arises ; re
bellion has broken out ; the Laureate is irreverently
criticised, suspected, no longer worshipped as a demi
god. Either because he is not a demi-god, or that
through long security he has lost the power to take
the buffets and rewards of fortune "with equal

152

ALFRED TENNYSON.
thanks," he does not move entirely contented within
the shadow that for the hour has crossed his tri
umphal path. A little poem, "The Flower," is the
expression of a genuine grievance : his plant, at first
novel and despised, grew into a superb flower of art,
was everywhere glorious and accepted, yet now is
again pronounced a weed because the seed is com
mon, and men weary of a beauty too familiar. The
petulance of these stanzas reveals a less edifying mat
ter, to wit, the failure of their author in submission
to the inevitable, the lack of a philosophy which he
is not slow to recommend to his fellows. If he verily
hears "the roll of the ages," as he has declared in
his answer to "A Spiteful Letter," why then so rest
ive? Why not recognize, even in his own case, the
benignity of a law which, as Cicero said of death,
must be a blessing because it is universal? He him
self has taught us, in the wisest language of our time,
that
" God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world."
No change, no progress. Better to decline, if need
be, upon some inferior grade, that all methods may
be tested. Ultimately, disgust of the false will bring
a reaction to something as good as the best which
has been known before.
Last of all, the world's true and enduring verdict.
In calmer moments the Laureate must needs reflect
that a future age will look back, measure him as he
is, and compare his works with those of his contem
poraries. To forestall, as far as may be, this stead
fast judgment of posterity, is the aim and service of
the critic. Let us separate ourselves from the adu
lation and envy of the moment, and search for the

HE REPRESENTS HIS PERIOD.


true relation of Tennyson to his era, estimating his
poetry, not by our appetite for it, but by its inherent
quality, and its lasting value in the progress of British
song.
There have been few comprehensive reviews of
Tennyson's poetical career. The artistic excellence
of his work has been, from the first, so distinguished
that lay critics are often at a loss how to estimate
this poet. We have had admirable homilies upon
the spirit of his teachings, the scope and nature of
his imagination, his idyllic quality, his landscape,
quately
characters,
setting
language,
forth Anglicanism,
his technical superiority.
but nothingI ade
am

153

aware that professional


7*
criticism is apt to be unduly Dual nature
technical ; to neglect the soul, in its concern for the ofart.
body, of art. My present effort is to consider both ;
nevertheless, with relation to Tennyson, above all
other modern poets, how little can be embraced within
the limits of an essay ! The specialist-reviewer has
the advantage of being thorough as far as he goes.
All I can hope is to leave no important point un
touched, though my reference to it may be restricted
to a single phrase.

II.
It seems to me that the only just estimate of Ten Tennyson
represents
nyson's position is that which declares him to be, his
era.
by eminence, the representative poet' of the recent
era. Not, like one or another of his compeers, repre
sentative of the melody, wisdom, passion, or other
partial phase of the era, but of the time itself, with its
diverse elements in harmonious conjunction. Years
have strengthened my belief that a future age will

iS4

ALFRED TENNYSON.
regard him, independently of his merits, as bearing
this relation to his period. In his verse he is as
truly " the glass of fashion and the mould of form "
of the Victorian generation in the nineteenth century
as Spenser was of the Elizabethan court, Milton of
the Protectorate, Pope of the reign of Queen Anne.
During his supremacy there have been few great
leaders, at the head of different schools, such as be
longed to the time of Byron, Wordsworth, and Keats.
His poetry has gathered all the elements which find
vital expression in the complex modern art.
Has the influence of Tennyson made the recent
British school, or has his genius itself been modified
and guided by the period ? It is the old question of
the river and the valley. The two have taken shape
together ; yet the beauty of Tennyson's verse was so
potent from the first, and has so increased in potency,
that we must pronounce him an independent genius,
certainly more than the mere creature of his sur
roundings.
Years ago, when he was yet comparatively unknown,
an American poet, himself finely gifted with the lyrical
ear, was so impressed by Tennyson's method, that,
" in perfect sincerity," he pronounced him " the noblest
poet that ever lived." If he had said " the noblest
artist," and confined this judgment to lyrists of the
English tongue, he possibly would have made no
exaggeration. Yet there have been artists with a less
conscious manner and a broader style. The Laureate
is always aware of what he is doing ; he is his own
daimon, the inspirer and controller of his own
utterances. He sings by note no less than by ear,
and follows a score of his own inditing. But, ac
knowledging his culture, we have no right to assume

A BORN ARTIST.
that his ear is not as fine as that of any poet who
gives voice with more careless rapture. His aver
age is higher than that of other English masters,
though there may be scarcely one who in special
flights has not excelled him. By Spencer's law of
progress, founded on the distribution of values, his
poetry is more eminent than most which has pre
ceded it.
I have inferred that the very success of Tennyson's
art has made it common in our eyes, and rendered
us incapable of fairly judging it. When a poet has
length of days, and sees his language a familiar por
tion of men's thoughts, he no longer can attract that
romantic interest with which the world regards a
genius freshly brought to hearing. Men forget that
he, too, was once new, unhackneyed, appetizing. But
recall the youth of Tennyson, and see how complete
the revolution with which he has, at least, been coeval,
and how distinct his music then seemed from every
thing which had gone before.
He began as a metrical artist, pure and simple,
and with a feeling perfectly unique, at a long re
move, even, from that of so absolute an artist as was
John Keats. He had very little notion beyond the
production of rhythm, melody, color, and other poetic
effects. Instinct led him to construct his machinery
before essaying to build. Many have discerned, in
his youthful pieces, the influence of Wordsworth and
Keats, but no less that of the Italian poets, and of
the early English balladists. I shall hereafter revert
to " Oriana," " Mariana," and " The Lady of Shalott,"
as work that in its kind is fully up to the best of
those Pre-Raphaelites who, by some arrest of devel
opment, stop precisely where Tennyson made his

155

Hindrance*
to correct
apprecia
tion.

A born
artist.

The PreRaphaeliies.

ALFRED TENNYSON
second step forward, and censure him for having gone
beyond them.
Meaningless as are the opening melodies of his col
lected verse, how delicious they once seemed, as a
change from even the greatest productions which then
held the public ear. Here was something of a new
kind ! The charm was legitimate. Tennyson's im
mediate predecessors were so fully occupied with the
mass of a composition that they slighted details :
what beauty they displayed was not of the parts, but
of the whole. Now, in all arts, the natural advance
is from detail to general effect. How seldom those
who begin with a broad treatment, which apes ma
turity, acquire subsequently the minor graces that
alone can finish the perfect work ! By comparison
of the late and early writings of great English poets,
Shakespeare and Milton, one observes the pro
cess of healthful growth. Tennyson proved his kin
dred genius by this instinctive study of details in his
immature verses. In marked contrast to his fellows,
and to every predecessor but Keats, " that strong,
excepted soul," he seemed to perceive from the
outset, that Poetry is an art, and chief of the fine arts :
the easiest to dabble in, the hardest in which to reach
true excellence; that it has its technical secrets, its
mysterious lowly paths that reach to aerial outlooks,
and this no less than sculpture, painting, music,
or architecture, but even more. He devoted himself,
with the eager spirit of youth, to mastering this ex
quisite art, and wreaked his thoughts upon expres
sion, for the expression's sake. And what else should
one attempt, with small experiences, little concern
for the real world, and less observation of it ? He
had dreams rather than thoughts ; but was at the

A TRANSITION PERIOD.
most sensitive period of life with regard to rhythm,
157
color, and form. In youth feeling is indeed " deeper
than all thought," and responds divinely to every
sensuous confrontment with the presence of beauty.
It is difficult now to realize how chaotic Sras the A transition
period.
notion of art among English verse-makers atTthe be 1820- 1830.
ginning of Tennyson's career. Not even the example
of Keats had taught the needful lesson, and I look
upon his successor's early efforts as of no small
importance. These were dreamy experiments in metre
and word-painting, and spontaneous after their kind.
Readers sought not to analyze their meaning and
grace. The significance of art has since become so
well understood, and such results have been attained,
that " Claribel," " Lilian," " The Merman," " The Dy
ing Swan," " The Owl," etc., seem slight enough to
us now ; and even then the affectation pervading
them, which was merely the error of a poetic soul
groping for its true form of expression, repelled men
of severe and established tastes ; but to the neophyte Charm of
Tennyson's
they had the charm of sighing winds and babbling early lyrics.
waters, a wonder of luxury and weirdness, inexpres
sible, not to be effaced. How we lay on the grass, in
June, and softly read them from the white page !
To this day what lyrics better hold their own than
" Mariana " and the " Recollections of the Arabian
Nights." In these pieces, however, as in the crude
" Poems,
yet picturesque " Ode to Memory," the poet exhibited chiefly
some distinctness of theme and motive, and, in a Lyrical"
word, seemed to feel that he had something to ex 1830.
press, if it were but the arabesque shadows of his
fancy-laden dreams. Of a mass of lyrics, sonnets,
Poems by
and other metrical essays, published theretofore, "Two
Brothers"
1827.
some contained in the Poems by Two Brothers, and

ALFRED TENNYSON.
others in the original volume of 1830, I say noth
ing, for they show little of the purpose that charac
terizes the few early pieces which our poet himself
retains in his collected works. One of them, " Hero
and Leander," is too good in its way to be discarded ;
the greater number are juvenile, often imitative, and
the excellent judgment of Tennyson is shown by his
rejection of all that have no true position in his
lyrical rise and progress.
The volume of 1832, which began with " The Lady
of Shalott," and contained " Eleanore," " Margaret,"
" The Miller's Daughter," " The Palace of Art," " The
May Queen," " Fatima," "The Lotos-Eaters," and
" A Dream of Fair Women," was published in his
twenty-second year. All in all, a more original and
beautiful volume of minor poetry never was added
to our literature. The Tennysonian manner here was
clearly developed, largely pruned of mannerisms.
The command of delicious metres ; the rhythmic susurrus of stanzas whose every word is as needful and
studied as the flower or scroll of ornamental archi
tecture, yet so much an interlaced portion of the
whole, that the special device is forgotten in the
general excellence ; the effect of color, of that music
which is a passion in itself, of the scenic pictures
which are the counterparts of changeful emotions ;
all are here, and the poet's work is the epitome of
every mode in art. Even if these lyrics and idyls had
expressed nothing, they were of priceless value as
guides to the renaissance of beauty. Thenceforward
slovenly work was impossible, subject to instant re
buke by contrast. The force of metrical elegance
made its way and carried everything before it. From
this day Tennyson confessedly took his place at the

THE VOLUME OF 1832.


head of what some attempt to classify as the artschool : that is, of poets who largely produce their
effect by harmonizing scenery and detail with the
emotions or impassioned action of their verse.
The tendency of his genius was revealed in this
volume. The author plainly was a college-man, a
student of many literatures, and, though an English
man to the core, alive to suggestions from Italian
and Grecian sources. His Gothic feeling was mani
fest in " The Lady of Shalott " and " The Sisters " ;
his classicism in " Ginone " ; his idyllic method, es
pecially, now defined itself, making the scenery of a
poem enhance die central idea, thought and land
scape being so blended that it was difficult to deter
mine which suggested the other.
I shall elsewhere examine with some care the rela
tions between Tennyson and Theocritus, and the gen
eral likeness of the Victorian to the Alexandrian
period, and at present need not enter upon this spe
cial ground. Enough to say that the Greek influence
is visible in many portions of the volume of 1832,
sometimes through almost literal translations of clas
sical passages. " CEnone," modelled upon the newDoric verse, ranks with " Lycidas " as an Hellenic
study. While this most chaste and beautiful poem
fascinated every reader, the wisest criticism found
more of genuine worth in the purely English quality
of those limpid pieces in which the melody of the
lyric is wedded to the sentiment and picture of the
idyl, "The Miller's Daughter," "The May Queen,"
and " Lady Clara Vere de Vere." More dewy, fresh,
pathetic, native verse had not been written since the
era of "As You Like It" and "A Winter's Tale."
During ten years this book accomplished its auspi-

159
The "artschool."

Tendency
ofthe pott's
genius.

See Chapter
VI.

Classicism.

Purely Eng
lish idyls.

l6o

"Poems?
1S42.

A treasury
ofrepresent
ative poems.

Blank-verse.

Previous
styles.

ALFRED TENNYSON.
cious work, until the author's fame and influence had
so extended that he was encouraged to print the vol
ume of 1842, wherein he first gave the name of idyls
to poems of the class that has brought him a distinc
tive reputation.
At the present day, were this volume to be lost,
we possibly should be deprived of a larger specific
variety of Tennyson's most admired poems than is
contained in any other of his successive ventures. It
is an assortment of representative poems. To an art
more restrained and natural we here find wedded a
living soul. The poet has convictions : he is not a
pupil, but a master, and reaches intellectual greatness.
His verses still bewitch youths and artists by their
sentiments and beauty, but their thought takes hold of
thinkers and men of the world. He has learned not
only that art, when followed for its own sake, is al
luring, but that, when used as a means of expressing
what cannot otherwise be quite revealed, it becomes
seraphic. We could spare, rather than this collection,
much which he has since given us : possibly " Maud,"
without doubt, idyls like "The Golden Supper" and
"Aylmer's Field." Look at the material structure of
the poetry. Here, at last, we observe the ripening
of that blank-verse which had been suggested in the
" CEnone." Consider Tennyson's handling of this
measure, the domino of a poetaster, the state gar
ment of a lofty poet. It must be owned that he now
enriched it by a style entirely his own, and as welldefined as those already established. Foremost of
the latter was the Elizabethan, marked by freedom
and power, and never excelled for dramatic compo
sition. Next, the Miltonic or Anglo-Epic, with its
sonorous grandeur and stately Roman syntax, of which

THE VOLUME OF 1842.


"Paradise Lost" is the masterpiece, and "Hyperion"
the finest specimen in modern times. That it really
has no place in our usage is proved by the fact that
Keats, with true insight, refused, after some experi
ence, to complete " Hyperion," on the ground that
it had too many " Miltonic inversions." Meanwhile
blank-verse had been used for less imaginative or less
heroical work; notably, for didactic and moralizing
essays, by Cowper, Wordsworth, and other leaders of
the contemplative school.
Tennyson's is of two kinds, one of which is suited
to the heroic episodes in his idyllic poetry, the first
important example being the " Morte d'Arthur," which
opened the volume of 1842, and is now made a por
tion of the " Idyls of the King." I hold the verse of
that poem to be his own invention, derived from the
study of Homer and his natural mastery of the Saxon
element in our language. Milton's Latinism is so
pronounced as to be un-English ; on the other hand,
there is such affinity between the simple strength of
the Homeric Greek and that of the English in which
Saxon words prevail, that the former can be rendered
into the latter with great effect. Tennyson recognizes
this in his prelude to " Morte d'Arthur," deprecating
his heroics as "faint Homeric echoes, nothing-worth."
But almost with the perusal of the first two lines,
" So all day long the noise of battle roll'd
Among the mountains by the winter sea,"
we see that this style surpasses other blank-verse in
strength and condensation. It soon became the
model for a score of younger aspirants ; in short,
impressed itself upon the artistic mind as a new and
vigorous form of our grandest English measure.

161

1 62

ALFRED TENNYSON.
The other style of Tennyson's blank-verse is found
in his purely idyllic pieces, "The Gardener's Daugh
ter," "Dora," "Godiva," and, upon a lower plane,
such eclogues as "Audley Court" and "Edwin Mor
ris." " St. Simeon Stylites " and " Ulysses " have each
a special manner. In the first-named group, the poet
brought to completeness the Victorian idyllic verse.
The three are models from which he could not ad
vance : in surpassing beauty and naturalness une
qualled, I say, by many of his later efforts. What
Crabbe essayed in a homely fashion, now, at the
touch of a finer artist, became the perfection of rural,
idyllic tenderness. " Dora " is like a Hebrew pasto
ral, the paragon of its kind, with not a quotable de
tail, a line too much or too little, but faultless as a
whole. Who can read it without tears ? " Godiva "
and " The Gardener's Daughter " demand no less
praise for descriptive felicity of another kind. But,
for virile grandeur and astonishingly compact expres
sion, there is no blank-verse poem, equally restricted
as to length, that approaches the " Ulysses " : concep
tion, imagery, and thought are royally imaginative,
and the assured hand is Tennyson's throughout.
I reserve for later discussion the poet's general
characteristics, fairly displayed in this volume. The
great feature is its comprehensive range; it includes
a finished specimen of every kind of poetry within
the author's power to essay. The variety is surpris
ing, and the novelty was no less so at the date of
its appearance. Here is "The Talking Oak," that
marvel of grace and fancy, the nonpareil of sustained
lyrics in quatrain verse ; as exquisite in filigree-work
as "The Rape of the Lock," with an airy beauty and
rippling flow, compared with which the motion of

163

'ENGLISH IDYLS AND OTHER POEMS.'


Pope's couplets is that of partners in an eighteenthcentury minuet. Here is the modern lover reciting
"Locksley Hall," which, despite its sentimental ego
tism and consolation of the heart by the head, has
fine metrical quality, is fixed in literature, and fur
nishes genuine illustrations of the poet's time. In
"The Two Voices" and "The Vision of Sin" the
excess of his speculative intellect makes itself felt:
but the second of these seems to me a strained and
fantastic production ; for which very reason, perchance,
it drew the attention of semi-metaphysical persons
who have no perception of the true mission of poetry,
and, by a certain affectation, mistaken for subtilty,
has excited more comment and analysis than it de
serves. " The Day-Dream," like " The Talking Oak,"
gives the poet an opportunity for dying falls, melliflu
ous cadences, and delicately fanciful pictures. The
story is made to his hand ; he rarely invents a story,
though often, as in the last-named poem, chancing
upon the conceit of a dainty and original theme.
Here, too, are "Lady Clare," "The Lord of Bur
leigh," and "Edward Gray," each a simple, crystal
line, and flawless ballad. Nor has Tennyson ever
composed, in his minor key, more enduring and sug
gestive little songs than " Break, break, break ! " and
" Flow down, cold Rivulet, to the Sea ! " both, also, in
this volume. His humor, which seldom becomes him,
is at its best in that half-pensive, half-rollicking,
wholly poetic composition, dear to wits and dreamers,
" Will Waterproof's Lyrical Monologue." In this colIectionj too, we find his early experiments in the now
famous measure of " In Memoriam." Purest and
highest of all the lyrical pieces are " St. Agnes " and
" Sir Galahad," full of white light, and each a stain-

"Locksley
Noli."

" The Two


Voices."
" The Vision
ofSin."

" The DayDream."

Ballads.

Sopgs.

The " Lyr


ical Mono
logue."
St.
Agnes " and
Sir Gala-

164

ALFRED TENNYSON.
less idealization of its theme. "Sir Galahad" must
be recited by a clarion voice, ere one can fully appre
ciate the sounding melody, the knightly, heroic ring.
The
Such
poetis has
the never
excellence,
chanted
anda such
morethe
ennobling
unusual strain.
range
of a volume in which every department of poetry,
except the dramatic, is exhibited in great perfection,
if not at the most imaginative height. To the au
thor's students it is a favorite among his books, as
the one that fairly represents his composite genius.
It powerfully affected the rising group of poets, giv
ing their work a tendency which established its gen
eral
There
character
comesfora the
timeensuing
in the thirty
life ofyears.
every aspiring
artist, when, if he be a painter, he tires of painting
cabinet-pictures, however much they satisfy his ad
mirers ; if a poet, he says to himself : " Enough of
lyrics and idyls ; let me essay a masterpiece, a sus
tained production, that shall bear to my former work
the relation which an opera or oratorio bears to a
composer's sonatas and canzonets." It may be that
some feeling of this kind impelled Tennyson to write
The Princess, the theme and story of which are both
his own invention. At that time he had not learned
the truth of Emerson's maxim that " Tradition sup
plies a better fable than any invention can " ; and
that it is as well for a poet to borrow from history
or romance a tale made ready to his hands, and
which his genius must transfigure. The poem is, as
he entitled it, " A Medley," constructed of ancient
and modern materials, a show of mediaeval pomp
and movement, observed through an atmosphere of
latter-day thought and emotion ; so varying, withal,
in the scenes and language of its successive parts,

the princess:

165

that one may well conceive it to be told by the group


of thoroughbred men and maidens who, one after
another, rehearse its cantos to beguile a festive sum
mer's day. I do not sympathize with the criticisms
to which it has been subjected upon this score, and
which is but the old outcry of the French classicists
against Victor Hugo and the romance school. The
poet, in his prelude, anticipates every stricture, and The Prel
a medley ! weand
should
have him back of the ude
to me This
the were
anachronisms
impossibilities
story seem not only lawful, but attractive. Like those
of Shakespeare's comedies, they invite the reader
off-hand to a purely ideal world ; he seats himself
upon an English lawn, as upon a Persian enchanted
carpet, hears the mystic word pronounced, and,
presto ! finds himself in fairy-land. Moreover, Ten
nyson's special gift of reducing incongruous details
to a common structure and tone is fully illustrated
in a poem made
"to suit with Time and place,
A Gothic ruin and a Grecian house,
A talk of college and of ladies' rights,
A feudal knight in silken masquerade.

Who told the ' Winter's Tale ' to do it for us."


But not often has a lovelier story been recited. After
the idyllic introduction, the body of the poem is
composed in a semi heroic verse. Other works of our
poet are greater, but none is so fascinating as this
romantic tale : English throughout, yet combining the
England of Cceur de Leon with that of Victoria in
one bewitching picture. Some of the author's most
delicately musical lines " jewels five words long "

i66

ALFRED TENNYSON.
are herein contained, and the ending of each canto
is an effective piece of art.
The tournament scene, at the close of the fifth
book, is the most vehement and rapid passage to be
found in the whole range of Tennyson's poetry. By
an approach to the Homeric swiftness, it presents a
contrast to the laborious and faulty movement of
much of his narrative verse. The songs, added in
the second edition of this poem, reach the high-water
mark of lyrical composition. Few will deny that,
taken together, the five melodies : " As through the
land," " Sweet and low," " The splendor falls on
castle walls," " Home they brought her warrior dead,"
and " Ask me no more ! " that these constitute the
finest group of songs produced in our century ; and
the third, known as the " Bugle Song," seems to many
the most perfect English lyric since the time of Shake
speare. In " The Princess " we also find Tennyson's
most successful studies upon the model of the Theocritan isometric verse. He was the first to enrich
our poetry with this class of melodies, for the bur
lesque pastorals of the eighteenth century need not
be considered. Not one of the blank-verse songs in
his Arthurian epic equals in structure or feeling the
" Tears, idle tears," and " O swallow, swallow, flying,
flying south ! " Again, what witchery of landscape
and action ; what fair women and brave men, who,
if they be somewhat stagy and traditional, at least
are more sharply defined than the actors in our poet's
other romances ! Besides, " The Princess " has a dis
tinct purpose, the illustration of woman's struggles,
aspirations, and proper sphere ; and the conclusion
is one wherewith the instincts of cultured people are
so thoroughly in accord, that some are used to an

HIS INTELLECTUAL GROWTH.


swer, when asked to present their view of the " wo IVOman's
man question," " You will find it at the close of Rights.
' The Princess.' " Those who disagree with Tenny
son's presentation acknowledge that if it be not true
it is well told. His Ida is, in truth, a beautiful and
heroic figure :
" She bow'd as if to veil a noble tear.
Not peace she looked, the Head : but rising up
Robed in the long night of her deep hair, so
To the open window moved.
She stretched her arms and call'd
Across the tumult and the tumult fell."
Of the author's shortcomings in this and other poems
we have to speak hereafter. I leave " The Princess,"
deeming it the most varied and interesting of his
works with respect to freshness and invention. All
mankind love a story-teller such as Tennyson, by this
creation, proved himself to be.
In the youth of poets it is the material value of
their work that makes it precious, and for certain
gifts of language and color we esteem one more
highly than another. When a sweet singer dies pre
maturely, we lament his loss ; but in a poet's later
years character and intellect begin to tell. His other
gifts being equal, he who has the more vigorous mind
will draw ahead of his fellows, and take the front
position. Tennyson, like Browning and Arnold, has
that which Keats was bereft of, and which Wordsworth,
Landor, and Procter possessed in full measure, the
gift of years, and must be judged according to his
fortune. In mental ability he comes near to the
greatest of the five, and in synthetic grasp surpasses
them all. Arnold's thought is wholly included in

Tennyson's
intellectual
growik and
advantage.

ALFRED TENNYSON.
Tennyson ; if you miss Browning's psychology, you
find a more varied analysis, qualified by wise restraint.
His intellectual growth has steadily progressed, and
is reflected in the nature of his successive poems.
At the age of forty a man, blessed with a sound
mind in a sound body, should reach the maturity of
his intellectual power. At such a period Tennyson
produced In Memoriam, his most characteristic and
significant work : not so ambitious as his epic of
King Arthur, but more distinctively a poem of this
century, and displaying the author's genius in a sub
jective form. In it are concentrated his wisest re
flections upon life, death, and immortality, the worlds
within and without, while the whole song is so largely
uttered, and so pervaded with the singer's manner,
that any isolated line is recognized at once. This
work stands by itself : none can essay another upon
its model, without yielding every claim to personality
and at the risk of an inferiority that would be ap
palling. The strength of Tennyson's intellect has full
sweep in this elegiac poem, the great threnody of
our language, by virtue of unique conception and
power. " Lycidas," with its primrose beauty and
varied lofty flights, is but the extension of a theme
set by Moschus and Bion. Shelley, in " Adonais,"
despite his spiritual ecstasy and splendor of lament,
followed the same masters, yes, and took his land
scape and imagery from distant climes. Swinburne's
dirge for Baudelaire is a wonder of melody ; nor do
we forget the " Thyrsis " of Arnold, and other modern
ventures in a direction where the sweet and absolute
solemnity of the Saxon tongue is most apparent.
Still, as an original and intellectual production, " In
Memoriam " is beyond them all : and a more impor

'IN memoriam:
tant, though possibly no more enduring, creation of
rhythmic art.
8 form of this work deserves attention.
The metrical
The author's choice of the transposed-quatrain verse
was a piece of good fortune. Its hymnal quality,
finely exemplified in the opening prayer, is always
impressive, and, although a monotone, no more mo
notonous than the sounds of nature,
the murmur
of ocean, the soughing of the mountain pines. Were
" In Memoriam " written in direct quatrains, I think
the effect would grow to be unendurable. The work
as a whole is built up of successive lyrics, each ex
pressing a single phase of the poet's sorrow-brooding
thought ; and here again is followed the method of
nature, which evolves cell after cell, and, joining each
to each, constructs the sentient organization. But
Tennyson's art-instincts are always perfect ; he does
the fitting thing, and rarely seeks through eccentric
andAscurious
to scenery,
movements
imagery,
to and
attract
general
the popular
treatment,
regard.
" In
Memoriam " is eminently a British poem. The grave,
majestic, hymnal measure swells like the peal of an
organ, yet acts as a brake on undue spasmodic out
bursts of discordant grief. A steady, yet varying
marche funebre ; a sense of passion held in check, of
reserved elegiac power. For the strain is everywhere
calm, even in rehearsing a bygone violence of emo
tion, along its passage from woe to desolation, and
anon, by tranquil stages, to reverence, thought, aspira
tion, endurance, hope. On sea and shore the ele
ments are calm ; even the wild winds and snows of
winter are brought in hand, and made subservient, as
the bells ring out the dying year, to the new birth of
Nature and the sure purpose of eternal God.

/is metrical
and stanzaic
arrangement.

A thorough'
ly national
Poem.

Rhythmic
grandeur
and solem
nity.

ALFRED TENNYSON.
Critical objections are urged against " In Memoriam " ; mostly, in my opinion, such as more fitly
apply to poems upon a lower grade. It is said to
present a confusion of religion and skepticism, an
attempt to reconcile faith and knowledge, to blend
the feeling of Dante with that of Lucretius ; but, if
this be so, the author only follows the example of
his generation, and the more faithfully gives voice to
its spiritual questionings. Even here he is accused
of " idealizing the thoughts of his contemporaries " ;
to which we rejoin, in the words of another, " that
great writers do not anticipate the thought of their
age ; they but anticipate its expression." His scien
tific language and imagery are censured also, but do
not his efforts in this direction, tentative as they are,
constitute a merit? Failing, as others have failed, to
reconcile poetry and metaphysics, he succeeds better
in speculations inspired by the revelations of lens
and laboratory. Why should not such facts be taken
into account? The phenomenal stage of art is pass
ing away, and all things, even poetic diction and
metaphor, must endure a change. It is absurd to
think that a man like Tennyson will rest content with
ignoring or misstating what has become every-day
knowledge. The spiritual domain is still the poet's
own ; but let his illustrations be derived from living
truths, rather than from the worn and ancient fables
of the pastoral age. A certain writer declares that
Tennyson shows sound sense instead of imaginative
power. Not only sense, methinks, but "the sanity
of true genius " ; and the Strephon-and-Chloe singers
must change their tune, or be left without a hearing.
A charge requiring more serious consideration is that
the sorrow of " In Memoriam " is but food for thought,

'in memoriam:
a passion of the head, not of the heart. The poet,
however, has reached a philosophical zenith of his
life, far above ignoble weakness, and performs the
office which an enfranchised spirit might well require
of him ; building a mausoleum of immortal verse,
conceiving his friend as no longer dead, but as hav
ing solved the mysteries they so often have discussed
together. If there is didacticism in the poem, it is a
teaching which leads ad astra, by a path strictly within
the province of an elegiac minstrel's song.
For the rest, "In Memoriam" is a serene and
truthful panorama of refined experiences ; filled with
pictures of gentle, scholastic life, and of English
scenery through all the changes of a rolling year ;
expressing, moreover, the thoughts engendered by
these changes. When too sombre, it is lightened by
sweet reminiscences ; when too light, recalled to grief
by stanzas that have the deep solemnity of a passing
bell. Among its author's productions it is the one
most valued by educated and professional readers.
Recently, a number of authors having been asked
to name three leading poems of this century which
they would most prefer to have written, each gave
"In Memoriam" either the first or second place
upon his list. Obviously it is not a work to read
at a sitting, nor to take up in every mood, but one
in which we are sure to find something of worth in
every stanza. It contains more notable sayings than
any other of Tennyson's poems. The wisdom, yearn
ings, and aspirations of a noble mind are here; curi
ous reasoning, for once, is not out of place ; the poet's
imagination, shut in upon itself, strives to irradiate
with inward light the mystic problems of life. At
the close, Nature's eternal miracle is made symbolic

171
Wisdom
spiritualized
h grief.

General
quality of
this noble

Admired by
men oflet
ters.

172

ALFRED TENNYSON.
of the soul's palingenesis, and the tender and beau
tiful marriage-lay tranquillizes the reader with the
thought of the dear common joys which are the heri
tage of every living kind.

III.
In the year 1850 Tennyson received the laurel,
and almost immediately was called upon by the
national sentiment to exercise the functions of his
poetic office. The "Ode on the Death of the Duke
of Wellington " was the first, and remains the most
ambitious, of his patriotic lyrics. This tribute to the
" last great Englishman " may fairly be pronounced
equal to the occasion ; a respectable performance for
Tennyson, a strong one for another poet. None but
a great artist could have written it, yet it scarcely
is a great poem, and certainly, though Tennyson's
most important ode, is not comparable with his pred
ecessor's lofty discourse upon the "Intimations of
Immortality." Several passages have become folkwords, such as " O good gray head which all men
knew ! " and
" This is England's greatest son,
He that gain'd a hundred fights,
Nor ever lost an English gun ! "
but the ode, upon the whole, is labored, built up of
high-sounding lines and refrains after the manner
of Dryden, in which rhetoric often is substituted for
imagination and richness of thought.
The Laureate never has been at ease in handling
events of the day. To his brooding and essentially
poetic nature such matters seem of no more moment,
beside the mysteries of eternal beauty and truth,

'MAUD, AND OTHER POEMS!


than was the noise of catapults and armed men to
Archimedes studying out problems during the city's
siege. If he succeeds at all with them, it is by
sheer will and workmanship. Even then his voice
is hollow, and his didacticism, as in " Maud," arti
ficial and insincere. The laurel, and the fame which
now had come to him, seemed for a time to bring
him more in sympathy with his countrymen, and he
made an honest endeavor to rehearse their achieve
ments in his song. The result, seen in the volume
Maud, and Other Poems, illustrates what I say. Here
are contained his prominent occasional pieces, "The
Charge of the Light Brigade," the Wellington ode,
and the metrical romance from which the volume
takes its name. After several revisions, the Balaklavan lyric has passed into literature, but ranks
below the nobler measures of Drayton and Campbell.
" Maud," however, with its strength and weakness,
has divided public opinion more than any other of
the author's works. I think that his judicious
students will not demur to my opinion that it is
quite below his other sustained productions ; rather,
that it is not sustained at all, but, while replete
with beauties, weak and uneven as a whole, and
that this is due to the poet's having gone outside
his own nature, and to his surrender of the joy of
art, in an effort to produce something that should
at once catch the favor of the multitude. " Maud "
is scanty in theme, thin in treatment, poor in
thought ; but has musical episodes, with much fine
scenery and diction. It is a greater medley than
"The Princess," shifting from vague speculations to
passionate outbreaks, and glorying in one famous
and beautiful nocturne, but all intermixed with

173

174

ALFRED TENNYSON.
cheap satire, and conspicuous for affectations un
worthy of the poet. The pity of it was that this
production appeared when Tennyson suddenly had
become fashionable, in England and America, through
his accession to the laureate's honors, and for this
reason, as well as for its theme and eccentric qual
ities, had a wider reading than his previous works :
not only among the masses, to whom the other vol
umes had been sealed books, but among thoughtful
people, who now first made the poet's acquaintance
and received " Maud " as the foremost example of
his style. First impressions are lasting, and to this
day Tennyson is deemed, by many of the latter
class, an apostle of tinsel and affectation. In our
own country especially, his popular reputation began
with " Maud," a work which, for lack of construc
tive beauty, is the opposite of his other narrative
poems.
A pleasing feature of the volume of 1855 was an
idyl, " The Brook," which is charmingly finished and
contains a swift and rippling inter-lyric delightful to
every reader. A winsome, novel stanzaic form, possi
bly of the Laureate's own invention, is to be found
in "The Daisy," and in the Horatian lines to his
friend Maurice. Here, too, is much of that felicitous
word-painting for which he is deservedly renowned :
" O Milan, O the chanting quires,
The giant windows' blazon'd fires,
The height, the space, the gloom, the glory !
A mount of marble, a hundred spires !
" How faintly-flush'd, how phantom-fair,
Was Monte Rosa, hanging there
A thousand shadowy-pencill'd valleys
And snowy dells in a golden air."
-

'IDYLS OF THE KING:


We come at last to Tennyson's master-work, so
recently brought to a completion after the labor of
twenty years, during which period the separate
Idyls of the King had appeared from time to time.
Nave and transept, aisle after aisle, the Gothic min
ster has extended, until, with the addition of a cloister
here and a chapel yonder, the structure stands com
plete. I hardly think that the poet at first expected
to compose an epic. It has grown insensibly, under
the hands of one man who has given it the best
years of his life, but somewhat as Wolf conceived
the Homeric poems to have grown, chant by chant,
until the time came for the whole to be welded to
gether in heroic form. Yet in other great epics the
action rarely ceases, the links are connected, and the
movement continues from day to day until the end.
Here, we have a series of idyls, like the tapestrywork illustrations of a romance, scene after scene, with
much change of actors and emotions, yet all leading
to one solemn and tragic close. It is the epic of
chivalry, the Christian ideal of chivalry which we
have deduced from a barbaric source, our concep
tion of what knighthood should be, rather than what
it really was ; but so skilfully wrought of high imag
inings, faery spells, fantastic legends, and mediaeval
splendors, that the whole work, suffused with the
Tennysonian glamour of golden mist, seems like a
chronicle illuminated by saintly hands, and often
blazes with light like that which flashed from the
holy wizard's book when the covers were unclasped.
And, indeed, if this be not the greatest narrativepoem since " Paradise Lost," what other English
production are you to name in its place ? Never
so lofty as the grander portions of Milton's epic,

" Idyls of
the King,"
S59-7*.

A n epic of
ideal chiv
alry.

176

ALFRED TENNYSON.
it is more evenly sustained and has no long prosaic
passages ; while " Paradise Lost " is justly declared
to be a work of superhuman genius impoverished by
dreary wastes of theology.
Tennyson early struck a vein in the black-letter
compilation of Sir Thomas Malory. A tale was
already fashioned to his use, from which to derive
his legends and exalt them with whatsoever spiritual
meanings they might require. The picturesque qual
ities of the old Anglo-Breton romance fascinated his
youth, and found lyrical expression in the weird,
melodious, Pre-Raphaelite ballad of " The Lady of
Shalott." The young poet here attained great ex
cellence in a walk which Rossetti and his pupils
have since chosen for their own, and his early
studies are on a level with some of their master
pieces. Until recently, they have made success in
this direction a special aim, while Tennyson would
not be restricted even to such attractive work, but
went steadily on, claiming the entire field of im
aginative research as the poet's own.
His strong allegorical bent, evinced in that early
lyric, was heightened by analysis of the Arthurian
legends. The English caught this tendency, long
since, from the Italians ; the Elizabethan era was
so charged with it, that the courtiers of the Virgin
Queen hardly could speak without a mystical doublemeaning, for an illustration of which read the
dialogue in certain portions of Kingsley's " Amyas
Leigh." From Sidney and Spenser down to plain John
Bunyan, and even to Sir Walter Scott, allegory is a
natural English mode ; and, while adopted in several
of Tennyson's pieces, it finds a special development
in the "Idyls of the King."

1 IDYLS OF THE KING:

1/7

The name thus bestowed upon the early instal


ments of this production seems less adapted to its
complete form. Like the walls of Troy, it
" Rose slowly to a music slowly breathed,
A cloud that gathered shape."
The shape no longer is idyllic, and doubt no longer
exists whether a successful epic can be written in a
mature period of national literature. We have one
here, but subdivided into ten distinct poems, each
of which suits the canonical requirement, and may
be read at a single sitting.
8* there is a marked difference
L in style Distinction
To my mind,
between the
between the original and later portions of this work. early
and
The "Morte d'Arthur " of 1842 is Homeric to the later blankverse.
farthest degree possible in the slow, Saxon move
ment of the verse ; grander, with its " hollow oes
and aes," than any succeeding canto, always except
ing " Guinevere." Nor do I think the later idyls
equal to those four which first were issued in one
volume, and which so cleared the Laureate's fame
from the doubts suggested by " Maud, and Other
Poems." "Vivien" is a bold and subtle analysis, ' Vivien."
a closer study of certain human types than Tenny
son is wont to make. " Elaine " still remains, for ' Elaine."
pathetic sweetness and absolute beauty of narrative
and rhythm, dearest to the heart of maiden, youth,
or sage. " Enid," while upon the lower level of 'Enid.""
' Pelleas
" Pelleas and Ettarre " and " Gareth and Lynette," and
Et
is clear and strong, and shows a freedom from tarre."
mannerism characteristic of the author's best period.
It would seem that his creative vigor reached its
height during the composition of these four idyls ;
certainly, since the production of " Enoch Arden,"

i78

ALFRED TENNYSON.
at an early subsequent date, he has not advanced in
freshness and imagination. His greatest achievement
still is that noblest of modern episodes, the canto
entitled " Guinevere," surcharged with tragic pathos
and high dramatic power. He never has so reached
the passio vera of the early dramatists as in this im
posing scene. There is nothing finer in modern verse
than the interview between Arthur and his remorseful
wife ; nothing loftier than the passage beginning
" Lo ! I forgive thee, as Eternal God
Forgives : do thou for thine own soul the rest.
But how to take last leave of all I loved ?
0 golden hair, with which I used to play
Not knowing ! O imperial-moulded form,
And beauty such as never woman wore,
Until it came a kingdom's curse with thee
1 cannot touch thy lips, they are not mine,
But Lancelot's : nay, they never were the King's."
When this idyl first appeared, what elevation seized
upon the soul of every poetic aspirant as he read
it ! What despair of rivalling a passion so imagina
tive, an art so majestic and supreme !
I have referred to the Homeric manner of the
fragment now made the conclusion of the epic, and
entitled " The Passing of Arthur." The magnificent
battle-piece, by which it is here preluded, is so dif
ferent in manner from the original " Morte d'Arthur,"
that both are injured by their juxtaposition. The
canto, moreover, plainly weakens at the close. The
epic properly ends with the line,
The poet's
"Andsense
on theofmere
proportion
the wailing here
died away."
works injuri

'IDYLS OF THE KING.'

179

ously, urging him to bring out fully the moral of his


allegory, albeit the effect really is harmed by this
addition of the sequel, down to the line which
finishes the work :
" And the new sun rose bringing the new year."
In conclusion, observe the technical features of
" Gareth and Lynette," a canto recently added to
the poem. It displays Tennyson's latest, not his
best manner, carried to an extreme ; the verse is
clamped together, with every conjunction omitted
that can be spared, yet interspersed with lines of
a galloping, redundant nature, as if the Laureate
were somewhat influenced by Swinburne and adapt
ing himself to a fashion of the time. A special
fault is the substitution of alliteration for the simple
excellence of his standard verse. This may be a
concession to the modern school, or a result of his
mousing among Pre-Chaucerian ballads. It palls on
the ear, as does the poet's excessive reiteration and
play upon words. We are compensated for all this
by a stalwart presentation of that fine old English
which Emerson has pronounced " a stern and dread
ful language." The public is indebted to Tennyson
for a restoration of precious Saxon words, too long
forgotten, which, we trust, will hereafter maintain
their ground. He is a purifier of our tongue : a
resistant to the novelties of slang and affectation
intruded upon our literature by the mixture of races
and the extension of English-speaking colonies to
every, clime and continent in the world.
It is not probable that another sustained poem
will hereafter be written upon the Arthurian legends.
Milton's dream inconsonant with his own time and

" Garetk.
and Lynelte."

Receni ft

Tennyson's
English.

i8o

ALFRED TENNYSON.

higher aspirations, has, at last, its due fulfilment.


The subject waited long, a sleeping beauty, until
the " fated fairy-prince " came, woke it into life,
and the spell is forever at an end. But who shall
say whether future generations will rate this epic
as highly as we do ; whether it will stand out like
" The Faery Queene " and " Paradise Lost," as one
of the epochal compositions by which an age is
symbolized ? More than one poem, or series of
poems, Drayton's "The Barons' Wars," for in
stance, has wrongly in its own time been thought
a work of this class, though now men say of it that
only the shadow of its name remains. At present
we have no right to declare of the " Idyls of the
King," as of " In Memoriam," that it is so original,
so representative both of the author and of his
period, as to defy the dust of time.
Resolute
A famous life often falls short of its promise.
andfortU'
.
.
.
nait adTemperament and circumstance hedge it with obw"r"aZd stacles ; or, perhaps, the " Fury with the abhorred
/ame.
shears " slits its thin-spun tissue before the decisive
hour. In the case of Tennyson this has been re
versed. He has advanced by regular stages to the
i highest office of a poet. More fortunate than Landor, he was suited to the time, and the time to his
genius ; he has been happier than Keats or Shelley
in length of years, and, in ease of circumstances,
than Wordsworth, Coleridge, or Hood. Had he
died after completing the epic, his work would still
seem rounded and complete. Surely a poet's youth
ful dream never was more fully realized, and we
must regard the Laureate's genius as developed
through good fortune to the utmost degree per
mitted by inherent limitations.

'ENOCH ARDEN?
During the growth of this epic he has, however,
produced a few other poems which take high rank.
Of these, Enoch Arden, in sustained beauty, bears
a relation to his shorter pastorals similar to that
existing between the epic and his minor heroic-verse.
Coming within the average range of emotions, it
has been very widely read. This poem is in its
author's purest idyllic style ; noticeable for evenness
of tone, clearness of diction, successful description
of coast and ocean, finally, for the loveliness and
fidelity of its genre scenes. In study of a class
below him, hearts "centred in the sphere of com
mon duties," the Laureate is unsurpassed. A far
different creation is " Lucretius," a brooding charac
ter with which Tennyson is quite in sympathy. He
has invested it with a certain restless grandeur, yet
hardly, I should conceive, wrought out the work he
thought possible when the theme was first suggested
to his mind. He found its limits and contented
himself with portraying a gloomy, isolated figure,
as strongly and subtly as Browning would have
drawn it, and with a terseness beyond the latter's
art.
I have already spoken of " The Golden Supper "
and "Aylmer's Field." Among other and better
pieces, " Sea-Dreams," a poem of measureless
satire and much idyllic beauty, " Tithonus," " The
Voyage," a fine lyric, and such masterly ballads
as "The Victor," "The Captor," and "The SailorBoy," will not be forgotten. It is worth while to
observe the few dialect poems which Tennyson has
written, thrown off, as if merely to show that he
could be easily first in a field which he resigns to
others. The " Northern Farmer " ballads, old and

l8l

"Enoch
Arden, and
Other
Poems"
1S64.

"Lucre
tius"

Miscellane
ous pieces.

Dialed
poems, etc.

ALFRED TENNYSON.
new, axe the best English dialect studies of our
time. Among his minor diversions are light oc
casional pieces and some experiments in classical
measures, often finished sketches, germs of works
to which he has given no further attention. He
saw that " Boadicea " offered no such field as that
afforded by the Arthurian legends, and wisely gave
it over. Again, he unquestionably could have made
a great blank-verse translation of Homer, but chose
the better part in devoting his middle life solely
to creative work. The world can ill afford to lose
a poet's golden prime in the labors of a translator.
IV.
In whatsoever light we examine the characteristics
of the Laureate's genius, the complete and even
balance of his poetry is from first to last con
spicuous. It exhibits that just combination of lyrical
elements which makes a symphony, wherein it is
difficult to say what quality predominates. Review
ing minor poets, we think this one attractive for
the wild flavor of his unstudied verse ; another, for
the gush and music of his songs ; a third, for idyllic
sweetness or tragic power ; but in Tennyson we
have the strong repose of art, whereof as of the
perfection of nature the world is slow to tire.
It has become conventional, but remember that
nothing endures to the point of conventionalism
which is not based upon lasting rules ; that it once
was new and refreshing, and is sure, in future days,
to regain the early charm.
The one thing longed for, and most frequently
missed, in work of this kind, is the very wilding

ANALYSIS OF HIS GENIUS.

183

flavor of which I speak. We are not always broad


enough and elevated enough to be content with
symphonic art. Guinevere wearies of Arthur. There
are times when a tart apple, a crust of bread, a bit
of wild honey, are worth more to us than all the
delicacies of the larder. We wish more rugged
outbreaks, more impetuous discords ; we listen for
the sudden irregular trill of the thicket songster.
The fulness of Tennyson's art evades the charm
of spontaneity. How rarely he takes you by sur
prise ! His stream is sweet, assured, strong ; but
how seldom the abrupt bend, the plunge of the
cataract, the thunder and the spray ! Doubtless he
has enthusiasms, but all are held in hand ; collegelife, study, restraint, comfort, reverence, have done
their work upon him. He is well broken, as we
say of a thoroughbred, proud and true, and,
though he makes few bursts of speed, keeps easily
forward, and is sure to be first at the stand.
We come back to the avowal that in technical A great and
conscientious
excellence, as an artist in verse, Alfred Tennyson artist.
is the greatest of modern poets. Other masters,
old or new, have surpassed him in special instances ;
but he is the one who rarely nods, and who always
finishes his verse to the extreme. Not that he is
free from weaknesses : to the present day, when
pushed for inspiration, he resorts to inventions as
disagreeable as the affectation which repelled many
healthy minds from his youthful lyrics. Faults of
this sort, in " Maud " and later poems, have somewhat
prejudiced another class of readers, people who,
with what a critic denominates their " eighteenth
century" taste, still pay homage to the genius of
Pope for merits which the Laureate has in even

1 84

ALFRED TENNYSON.

greater excess.
A question recently has been
mooted, whether Milton, were he living in our time,
could write " Paradise Lost " ? A no less interesting
conjecture would relate to the kind of poetry that
we should have from Pope, were he of Tennyson's
Points of generation. The physical traits of the two men
resemblance
being so utterly at variance, no doubt many will
between
Tennyson scout my suggestion that the verse of the former
and Pope.
might closely resemble that of the latter. Pope
excelled in qualities which, mutatis mutandis, are
noticeable in Tennyson : finish and minuteness of
detail, and the elevation of common things to fanci
ful beauty. Here, again, compare " The Rape of
the Lock " with " The Sleeping Beauty," and espe
cially with " The Talking Oak." A faculty of " say
ing things," which, in Pope (his being a cruder age,
when persons needed that homely wisdom which
seems trite enough in our day), became didacticism,
in Tennyson is sweetly natural and poetic. Since
the period of the " Essay on Man," from what writer
can you cull so many wise and fine , proverbial
phrases as from the poet who says :
"'Tis better to have loved and lost,
Than never to have loved at all " ;
"Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood " ;
"There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds";
who puts the theory of evolution in a couplet when
he sings of
" one far-off divine event,
To which the whole creation moves";

TENNYSON AND POPE.


who so tersely avows that
and, again
" "Things
Knowledge
: seen are
comes,
mightier
but wisdom
than things
lingersheard
"; ";

" Old age hath yet his honor and his toil " ;
from whom else so many of these proverbs, which are
not isolated, but, as in Pope's works, recur by tens
and scores ? Curious felicities of verse :
" Laborious orient ivory sphere in sphere " ;
lines which record the most exquisite thrills of life :
" Our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips " ;
and unforgotten similes :
"Dear as remembered kisses after death";
such beauties as these occur in multitudes, and lit
erally make up the body of the Laureate's song. In
feeling, imagination, largeness of heart and head, the
diminutive satirist can enter into no comparison with
our poet, but the situation is otherwise as respects
finish and moralistic power. The essence of Pope's
art was false, because it was the product of a false
age ; Dryden had been his guide to the stilted hero
ics of the French school, which so long afterwards,
Pope lending them such authority, stalked through
English verse. In this day he would, like Tennyson,
have found his masters among the early, natural
poets, or obtained, in a direct manner, what classi
cism he needed, and not through Gallic filters. Yet
it is not long since I heard an eminent man laud
ing Pope for the very characteristics which, as here

ALFRED TENNYSON.
shown, are conspicuous in Tennyson ; and decrying
the latter, misled by that chance acquaintance with
his poetry which is worse than no acquaintance at
all. In suggestivcness Pope was singularly deficient :
his constructive faculty so prevailed, that he left
nothing to the reader's fancy, but explained to the
end. He had no such moods as those evoked by
" Tears, idle tears," and " Break, break, break ! " and
therefore his verses never suggest them. In irony
Tennyson would equal Pope, had he not risen above
it. The man who wrote " The New Timon and the
Poets," and afterwards rebuked himself for so doing,
could write another " Dunciad," or, without resort to
any models, a still more polished and bitter satire of
his own.
Supreme
Tennyson's original and fastidious art is of itself a
and complex
modern art. theme for an essay. The poet who studies it may
well despair ; he never can excel it, and is tempted
to a reactionary carelessness, trusting to make his
individuality felt thereby. Its strength is that of per
fection ; its weakness, the over-perfection which marks
a still-life painter. Here is the absolute sway of
metre, compelling every rhyme and measure needful
to the thought ; here are sinuous alliterations, unique
and varying breaks and pauses, winged flights and
falls, the glory of sound and color, everywhere pres
ent, or, if missing, absent of the poet's free will. Art
so complex was not possible until centuries of litera
ture had passed, and an artist could overlook the
field, essay each style, and evolve a metrical result,
which should be to that of earlier periods what the
music of Meyerbeer and Rossini is to the narrower
range of Piccini or Gluck. In Tennyson's artistic
conscientiousness, he is the opposite of that com

HIS DESCRIPTIVE POWER.


peer who approaches him most nearly in years and
strength of intellect, Robert Browning. His gift of Browning.
language is not so copious as Swinburne's, yet through Swinburne.
its use the higher excellence is attained. But I shall
elsewhere write of these matters. Let me conclude
my remarks upon the Laureate's art with a reference
to his unfailing taste and sense of the fitness of things. Taste.
This is neatly exemplified in the openings, and espe
cially in the endings, of his idyls. " Audley Court "
very well illustrates what I mean. Observe, also, the
beautiful dedication of his collected works to the
Queen, and the solemn and faithful character-painting
of the tribute to Prince Albert which forms the prelude
to the Idyls of the King. The two dedications are
equal to the best ever written, and each is a poem
by itself. They fully sustained the wisdom of Victo
ria's choice of a successor to
" This laurel greener from the brows
Of him that uttered nothing base."
Leaving the architecture of Tennyson's poetry and The Laure
ate an idyl'
coming to the sentiment which it seeks to express, list.
we are struck at once by the fact that an idyllic,
or picturesque mode of conveying that sentiment is
the one natural to this poet, if not the only one
permitted by his limitations. In this he surpasses all
the poets since Theocritus; and his work is greater
than the Syracusan's, because his thought and period
are greater. His eyes are his purveyors ; with " wis
dom at one entrance quite shut out" he would be
helpless. To use the lingo of the phrenologists, his
locality is better than his individuality. He does not,
like Browning, catch the secret of a master-passion,
nor, like the old dramatists, the very life of action;

i88

ALFRED TENNYSON.

on the contrary, he gives us an ideal picture of an


ideal person, but set against a background more
tangible than other artists can draw, making the
accessories, and even the atmosphere, convey the
meaning of his poem. As we study his verse, and
the sound and color of it enter our souls, we think
with him, we partake of his feeling, and are led to
regions which he finds himself unable to open for
us except in this suggestive way. The fidelity of his
accessories is peculiar to the time : realistic, without
the Flemish homeliness ; true as Pre-Raphaelitism,
but mellowed with the atmosphere of a riper art.
This idyllic method is not that of the most inspired
poets and the most impassioned periods. But, merely
His descrip as a descriptive writer, who is so delightful as Ten
tivefacuity.
nyson ? He has the unerring first touch, which in a
single line proves the artist; and it justly has been
remarked that there is more true English landscape
in many an isolated stanza of " In Memoriam " than
in the whole of " The Seasons," that vaunted de
scriptive poem of a former century. A paper has
been written upon the Lincolnshire scenery depicted
in his poems, and we might have others, just as well,
upon his marine or highland views. He is a born
observer of physical nature, and, whenever he applies
an adjective to some object, or passingly alludes to
some phenomenon which others have not noted, is
almost infallibly correct. Possibly he does this too
methodically, but his opponents cannot deny that his
outdoor rambles are guided by their eloquent apostle's
"Lamp of Truth."
imitations.
His limitations are nearly as conspicuous as his
abundant gifts. They are indicated, first, by a style
pronounced to the degree of mannerism, and, sec

HIS LIMITATIONS.
ondly, by failure, until within a very recent date, to
produce dramatic work of the genuine kind.
With respect to his style, it may be said that
Tennyson while objective in the variety of his
themes, and in ability to separate his own experi
ence from their development is the most sub
jective of poets in the distinguishable flavor of his
language and rhythm. Reading him you might not
guess his life and story, the reverse of which is
true with Byron, whom I take as a familiar example
of the subjective in literature ; nevertheless, it is im
possible to observe a single line, or an entire speci
men, of the Laureate's poems, without feeling that
they are in the handwriting of the same master, or
of some disciple who has caught his fascinating and
contagious style.
I speak of his second limitation, with a full
knowledge that many claim a dramatic crown for the
author of the " Northern Farmer," " Tithonus," " St.
Simeon Stylites," for the poet of the Round
Table and the Holy Grail. But isolated studies
are not sufficient : a group of living men and women
is necessary to broad dramatic action. Tennyson
forces his characters to adapt themselves to pre
conceived, statuesque ideals of his own. His chief
success is with those in humble life ; in " Enoch
Arden," and elsewhere, he has very sweetly depicted
the emotions of simple natures, rarely at a sublime
height or depth of passion. He also draws with
an easy touch occasionally found in the prose of
the author of " The Warden " a group of sturdy,
refined, comfortable fellows upon their daily ram
bles, British and modern in their wholesome talk.
But the true dramatist instinctively portrays either

189

190

Effect ofa
secluded life.
Cp. " Poets
ofA mer
lea " ; pp.
155, 156.

His ideal
personages.

ALFRED TENNYSON.
exceptional characters, or ordinary beings in im
passioned and extraordinary moods. This Tennyson
rarely essays to do, except when presenting imagi
nary heroes of a visioned past. A great master of
contemplative, descriptive, or lyrical verse, he falls
short in that combination of action and passion which
we call dramatic, and often gives us a series of mar
vellous tableaux in lieu of exalted speech and deeds.
This lack of individuality is somewhat due to
the influence of the period ; largely, also, to the
habit of solitude which the poet has chosen to in
dulge. His life has been passed among his books
or in the seclusion of rural haunts ; when in town,
in the company of a few chosen friends. This has
heightened his tendency to reverie, and unfitted him
to distinguish sharply between men and men. The
great novelists of our day, who correspond to the
dramatists of a past age, have plunged into the roar
of cities and the thick of the crowd, touching people
closely and on every side. It must be owned that
we do not find in their works that close knowledge
of inanimate nature for which Tennyson has fore
gone "the proper study of mankind." The one
seems to curtail the other, Wordsworth's writings
being another example in point. " Men my brothers,
men the workers," sings the Laureate, and is pleased
to watch and encourage them, but always from afar.
With few exceptions, then, his most poetical types
of men and women are not substantial beings, but
beautiful shadows, which, like the phantoms of a
stereopticon, dissolve if you examine them too long
and closely. His knights are the old bequest of chiv
alry, yet how stalwart and picturesque ! His early
ideals of women are cathedral-paintings, scarcely

PERFECTLY ADAPTED TO HIS TIME.


flesh and blood, but certain attributes personified and
made angelical. Where a story has been made for
him he is more dramatic. Arthur, Lancelot, Merlin,
Guinevere, are strong, wise, or beautiful, and so we
find them in the chronicle from which the poet drew
his legend. He has advanced them to the require
ments of modern Christianity, yet hardly created them
anew. It is not improbable that Tennyson may force
himself to compose some notably dramatic work ; but
only through skill and strength of purpose, in this
age, and with his habit of life. In a dramatic period
he might find himself as sadly out of place as Beddoes, Darley, Landor, have been in his own century.
By sheer good fortune he has flourished in a time
calling for tenderness, thought, excellent workman
ship, and not for wild extremes of power. So chaste,
varied, and tuneful are his notes, that they are scorn
fully compared to piano-music, in distinction from
what he himself has entitled the "God-gifted organ
voice of England." Take, however, the piano as an
instrumental expression of recent musical taste, and
see to what a height of execution, of capacity to give
almost universal pleasure, the art of playing it has
been carried. A great pianist is a great artist ; and it
is no light fame which holds, with relation to poetry,
the supremacy awarded to Liszt or Schumann by the
refined musicians of our time.
The cast of Tennyson's intellect is such, that his
social rank, his training at an old university, and his
philosophic learning have bred in him a liberal con
servatism. Increase of ease and of fame has strength
ened his inclination to accept things as they are,
and, while recognizing the law of progress, to make
no undue effort to hasten the order of events. He

191

ALFRED TENNYSON.
sees that "the thoughts of men are widened with the
process of the suns," but is not the man to lead a
reform, or to disturb the pleasant conditions in which
his lot is cast. No personal wrong has allied him
to the oppressed and struggling classes, yet he is
too intellectual not to perceive that such wrongs
exist. It must be remembered that Shakespeare and
Goethe were no more heroic. Just so with his re
ligious attitude. Reverence for beauty would of itself
dispose him to love the ivied Church, with all its
art, and faith, and ancestral legendary associations ;
and therefore, while amply reflecting in his verse the
doubt and disquiet of the age, his tranquil sense of
order, together with the failure of iconoclasts to sub
stitute any creed for that which they are breaking
down, have brought him to the position of stanch Sir
William Petty (pbiit 1687), who wrote in his will these
memorable words : " As for religion, I die in the
profession of that Faith, and in the practice of such
Worship, as I find established by the law of my
country, not being able to believe what I myself
please, nor to worship God better than by doing as
I would be done unto, and observing the laws of
my country, and expressing my love and honor unto
Almighty God by such signs and tokens as are un
derstood to be such by the people with whom I live,
God knowing my heart even without any at all."
So far as the " religion of art " is concerned, Ten
nyson is the most conscientious of devotees. Through
out his work we find a pure and thoughtful purpose,
abhorrent of the mere licentious passion for beauty,
"such as lurks
In some wild Poet, when he works
Without a conscience or an aim."

WORDSWORTH UPON SCIENCE AND POETRY.


In my remarks upon " In Memoriam " I have shown
that in one direction he readily keeps pace with the
advance of modern thought. A leading mission of
9 to be that of hastening theMtransition
his art appears
of our poetic nomenclature and imagery from the old
or phenomenal method to one in accordance with
knowledge and truth. His laurel is brighter for the
fact that he constantly avails himself of the results
of scientific discovery, without making them prosaic.
This tendency, beginning with " Locksley Hall " and
" The Princess," has increased with him to the present
time. If modern story-writers can make the wonders
of chemistry and astronomy the basis of tales more
fascinating to children than the Arabian Nights, why
should not the poet explore this field for the creation
of a new imagery and expression ? There is a remark
able passage in Wordsworth's preface to the second
edition of his poems ; a prophecy which, half a cen
tury ago, could only have been uttered by a man of
lofty intellect and extraordinary premonition of changes
even now at hand :
"The objects of the poet's thoughts are every
where ; though the eyes and senses of men are, it is
true, his favorite guides, yet he will follow whereso
ever he can find an atmosphere of sensation in which
to move his wings. Poetry is the first and last of all
knowledge, it is immortal as the heart of man. If
the labors of the men of science should ever create
any material revolution, direct or indirect, in our con
dition, and in the impressions which we habitually
receive, the poet will sleep then no more than at
present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the
man of science, not only in those general indirect
effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation

193

//is verse
conformed
to modern
progress and
discovery.
is

Words
worth upon
thefuture
relations of
Science and
Poetry.
See also
page 15.

194

Taine's
analysis :

ALFRED TENNYSON.
into the midst of the objects of the science itself.
The remotest discoveries of the chemist, the bot
anist, or mineralogist will be as proper objects of the
poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if
the time should ever come when these things shall be
\familiar to us, ami the relations under which they are
contemplated by the followers of the respective sciences
shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoy
ing and suffering beings. If the time should ever come
when what is now called science, thus familiarized to
men, shall be ready to put on, as it were, a form offlesh
and blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the
transfiguration, and will welcome the Being thus pro
duced, as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of
man."
It is not unlikely that Tennyson was early im
pressed by these profound observations ; at all events,
he has seen the truths of science becoming familiar
"to the general," and has governed his art accord
ingly. The poet and man of science have a common
ground, since few discoveries are made without the
exercise of the poet's special gift, the imagination.
This faculty is required to enable a child to compre
hend any scientific paradox : for instance, that of the
rotation of the Earth upon its axis. The imagination
of an investigator advances from one step to another,
and thus, in a certain sense, the mental processes of
a Milton and a Newton are near akin. A plod
ding, didactic intellect is not strictly scientific ; nor
will great poetry ever spring from a merely phan
tasmal brain: "best bard because the wisest," sings
the poet.
M. Taine's chapter upon Tennyson shows an intelli
gent perception of the Laureate's relations to his time,

TAMES ESTIMATE OF HIM.


and especially to England ; but though containing a
fine interlude upon the perennial freshness of a poet
and the zest which makes nature a constant surprise
to him, declaring that the poet, in the presence of
this world, is as the first man on the first day, with
all this excellence the chapter fails to rightly appre
ciate Tennyson, and overestimates Alfred de Musset
in comparison. M. Taine's failure, I think, is due to
the fact that no one, however successful in mastering
a foreign language, can fully enter into that nicety
of art which is the potent witchery of Tennyson's
verse. The minute distinction between one poem
and another, where the ideas are upon a level, and
the difference is one of essential flavor, a foreigner
loses without perceiving his loss. Precisely this deli
cacy of aroma separates Tennyson from other masters
of verse. An English school-girl will see in his work
a beauty that wholly escapes the most accomplished
Frenchman : the latter may have ten times her knowl
edge of the language, but she "hears a voice he
cannot hear" and feels an influence he never can
fairly understand. Again, M. Taine does not allow
credit for the importance of the works actually pro
duced by Tennyson. Largeness and proportion go
for something in edifices; and although De Musset,
the errant, impassioned, suffering Parisian, had the
sacred fire, and gave out burning flashes here and
there, his light was fitful, nor long sustained, and we
think rather of what one so gifted ought to have
accomplished than of what he actually did.
But Taine's catholicity, and the very fact that he
is a foreigner, have protected him, on the other hand,
from the overweening influence of Tennyson's art, that
holds us

its defects.

De Musset.

wherein
critic has
succeeded-

196

ALFRED TENNYSON.
" Above the subject, as strong gales
Hold swollen clouds from raining " ;
have made him a wiser judge of the poet's intellect
ual and imaginative position. In this matter he is
like a deaf man watching a battle, undisturbed by
the bewildering power of sound. His remarks upon
the limitations of a " comfortable, luxurious, English "
muse are not withouj reason ; all in all, he has a
just idea of Tennyson's representative attitude in the
present state of British thought and art. He has
laid too little stress upon the difference between
Tennyson and Byron, by observing which we gather
a clearer estimate of the former's genius than in any
other way.
Tennyson is the antithesis of Byron, in both the
form and spirit of his song. The Georgian poet,
with all the glow of genius, constantly giving utter
ance to condensed and powerful expressions, never
attempted condensation in his general style ; there
was nothing he so little cared for ; his inspiration
must have full flow and break through every barrier ;
it was the roaring of a mighty wind, the current of
a great river, prone to overflow, and often to spread
thinly and unevenly upon the shoals and lowlands.
Tennyson, though composing an extended work, seeks
the utmost terseness of expression ; howsoever com
posite his verse, it is tightly packed and cemented,
and decorated to repletion with fretwork and precious
stones ; nothing is neglected, nothing wasted, nothing
misapplied. You cannot take out a word or sentence
without marring the structure, nor can you find a
blemish ; while much might be profitably omitted
from Byron's longer poems, and their blemishes are
frequent as the beauties. Prolixity, diffuseness, were

TENNYSON AND BYRON.


characteristic of Byron's time. Again, Tennyson is
greater in analysis and synthesis, the two strong
servitors of art. In sense of proportion Byron was
all abroad. He struck bravely into a poem, and,
trusting to the fire of his inspiration, let it write
itself, neither seeing the end nor troubling his mind
concerning it. Certainly this was true with regard
to his greatest productions, " Childe Harold " and
" Don Juan " ; though others, such as " Manfred,"
were exceptions through dramatic necessity. In Ten
nyson's method, as in architecture, we are sure that
the whole structure is foreseen at the outset. Every
block is numbered and swings into an appointed
place ; often the final portions are made first, that
the burden of the plan may be off the designer's
mind. Leaving the matter of art, there is no less
difference between the two poets as we consider
their perceptive and imaginative gifts, and here the
largeness of Byron's vision tells in his favor. Ten
nyson, sometimes grand and exalted, is equally deli
cate, an artist of the beautiful in a minute way.
Of this Byron took little account ; his soul was ex
alted by the broad and mighty aspects of nature ; for
mosaic-work he was unfitted : a mountain, the sea,
a thunder-storm, a glorious woman, such imposing
objects aroused his noble rage. You never could
have persuaded him that the microcosm is equal
to the macrocosm. Again, his subjectivity, so in
tense, was wholly different from Tennyson's, in that
he became one with Nature, a part of that which
was around him. Tennyson is subjective, so far as
a pervading sameness of style, a landscape seen
through one shade of glass, can make him, yet few
have stood more calmly aloof from Nature, and viewed

197

198

ALFRED TENNYSON.
her more objectively. He contemplates things with
out identifying himself with them. In these respects,
Tennyson and Byron not only are antithetical, but
each above his contemporaries reflect the an
tithetical qualities of their respective eras. In con
clusion, it should be noticed that, although each has
had a host of followers, Byron affected the spirit of
the people at large, rather than the style of his
brother poets ; while Tennyson, through the force of
his admirable art, has affected the poets themselves,
who do not sympathize with his spirit, but show
themselves awed and instructed by his mastery of
technics. Byron's influence was national ; that of
Tennyson
If the temperament
is professional
of to
Byron
an unprecedented
or of Mrs. Browning
degree.
may be pronounced an ideal poetic temperament,
certainly the career of Tennyson is an ideal poetic
career. He has been less in contact with the rude
outer world than any poet save Wordsworth ; again,
while even the latter wrote much prose, Tennyson,
" having wherewithal," and consecrating his life whol
ly to metrical art, has been a verse-maker and noth
ing else. He has passed through all gradations,
from obscurity to laurelled fame ; beginning with the
lightest lyrics, he has lived to write the one success
ful epic of the last two hundred years ; and though
he well might rest content, if contentment were pos
sible to poets and men, with the glory of a farreaching and apparently lasting renown, he still
pursues his art, and seems, unlike Campbell and
many another poet, to have no fear of the shadow
of his own success. His lot has been truly enviable.
We have observed the disadvantages of amateurship
in the case of Landor, and noted the limitations

A FINAL SUMMARY.
imposed upon Thomas Hood by the poverty which
clung to him through life ; but Tennyson has made
the former condition a vantage-ground, and thereby
carried his work to a perfection almost unattainable
in the experience of a professional, hard-working lit
terateur. Writing as much and as little as he chose,
he has escaped the drudgery which breeds contempt.
His song has been the sweeter for his retirement,
like that of a cicada piping from a distant grove.

199
Cp. " Poets
ofAmer
ica " : /p.
222, 223.

V.
Reviewing our analysis of his genius and works, Summary
ofthefore
we find in Alfred Tennyson the true poetic irritability, going
analy.
a sensitiveness increased by his secluded life, and dis
played from time to time in "the least little touch
of the spleen " ; we perceive him to be the most
faultless of modern poets in technical execution, but
one whose verse is more remarkable for artistic per
fection than for dramatic action and inspired fervor.
His adroitness surpasses his invention. Give him a
theme, and no poet can handle it so exquisitely, yet
we feel that, with the Malory legends to draw upon,
he could go on writing " Idyls of the King " forever.
We find him objective in the spirit of his verse, but
subjective in the decided manner of his style ; pos
sessing a sense of proportion, based upon the high
est analytic and synthetic powers, a faculty that can
harmonize the incongruous thoughts, scenes, and gen
eral details of a composite period ; in thought resem
bling Wordsworth, in art instructed by Keats, but
rejecting the passion of Byron, or having nothing in
his nature that aspires to it ; finally, an artist so per
fect in a widely extended range, that nothing of his

200

ALFRED TENNYSON.
work can be spared, and, in this respect, approaching
Horace and outvying Pope ; not one of the great
wits nearly allied to madness, yet possibly to be ac
cepted as a wiser poet, serene above the frenzy of
the storm ; certainly to be regarded, in time to come,
as, all in all, the fullest representative of the refined,
speculative, complex Victorian age.

CHAPTER

VI.

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


HAVING acknowledged Tennyson as master of
the idyllic school, and having seen that his
method, during the last thirty years, whatever its
strength or weakness, has been conspicuous in the
prevailing form and spirit of English verse, it does
not seem amiss, in the case of this poet, to supple
ment my review of his genius and works by some
remarks upon the likeness which he bears to the
Dorian father of idyllic song, and upon the relations
of both the ancient and modern poets to their respec
tive eras.

Until within a very recent period, the text of the


Greek idyls was not embraced in the course of study
at our foremost American colleges. Nevertheless, the
Greek Reader which, a score of years ago, was largely
in use for the preparatory lessons of the high schools,
contained, amidst an assorted lot of passages from
various writers, that wonderful elegy, "The Epitaph
of Bion," whose authorship is attributed to Moschus.
The novelty, the beauty, the fresh and modern thought
of this undying poem were visible even to the schoolfagged intellect of youths to whom poetry was a vague

202

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


delight. Well might they be, for this elegy, in
which the pain and passion of lamentation for a
brother-minstrel are sung in strains echoing those
which Bion himself had chanted in artificial sorrow
for the mystic Adonis, this perpetual elegy was the
mould, if not the inspiration, of four great English
dirges : laments beyond which the force of poetic an
guish can no further go, and each of which is but a
later affirmation that the ancient pupil of Theocritus
found the one key-note to which all high idyllic elegy
should be attuned thenceforth.
Having made a first acquaintance with the work of
Tennyson, and who does not remember how new and
delicious the lyrics of the rising English poet seemed
to us, half surfeited, as we were, with the fulness of
his predecessors ? I could not fail to observe a re
semblance between certain portions of his verse and
the only Greek idyl which I then knew. For exam
ple, in the use of the elegiac refrain, in the special
imagery, in the adaptation of landscape and color to
the feeling of a poem, and, often, in the suggestion of
the feeling by the mere scenic effect. It was not till
after that thorough knowledge of the English master's
art, which has been no less absorbing and perilous
than instructive to the singers of our period, that I
was led to study the entire relics of the Greek idyllic
poets. Then, for the first time, I became aware of
the immense obligations of Tennyson to Theocritus,
not only for the method, sentiment, and purpose, but
for the very form and language, which render beautiful
much of his most widely celebrated verse.
Three points were distinctly brought in view :
i. The likeness of the Victorian to the Alexandrian
age-

DESIGN OF THIS CHAPTER.

203

2. The close study made by Tennyson of the Syracusan idyls, resulting in the adjustment of their struc
ture to English theme and composition, and in the
artistic imitation of their choicest passages.
3. Hence, his own discovery of his proper function
as a poet, and the gradual evolution and shaping of
his whole literary career.

II.
The design of this supplemental chapter is to ex
hibit some of the evidences on which the foregoing Illustration
oftheforepoints are taken. They may interest the student of "goingpoints.
comparative minstrelsy, as an addition to "his list of
" Historic Counterparts " in literature, and are worth
the attention of that host of readers, so wonted to
the faultless art of Tennyson that each trick and
turn of his verse, his every image and thought, are
more familiar to them than were the sentimental
ditties of Moore and the romantic cantos of Scott
and Byron to the poetic taste of an earlier genera
tion. And how few, indeed, of his pieces could we
spare ! so few, that when he does trifle with his' art
the critics laugh like school-boys delighted to catch
the master tripping for once ; not wholly sure but
that the matter may be noble, because, forsooth, he
composed it. Yet men, wont to fare sumptuously,
will now and then leave their delicate viands untasted, and hanker with lusty appetite for ruder and
more sinewy fare. We turn again to Byron for sweep
and fervor, to Coleridge and Shelley for the music
that is divine ; and it is through Wordsworth that
we commune with the very spirits of the woodland
and the misty mountain winds.

204

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


It will not harm the noble army of verse-readers to
be guided for a moment to the original fountain of that
stream from which they take their favorite draughts.
The Sicilian idyls were very familiar to the dramatists
and songsters of Shakespeare's time, and a knowledge
of them was affected, at least, by the artificial jinglers
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Nowa
days, we have Homer and Horace by heart; but The
ocritus, to most of us, is but the echo of a melodious
name. As the creator of the fourth great order of
poetry, the composite, or idyllic, he bears to it the
relation of Homer to epic, Pindar to lyric, ^Eschylus
to dramatic verse ; and if he had not sung as he sang,
in Syracuse and Alexandria, two thousand years ago,
it is doubtful whether modern English fancy would
have been under the spell of that minstrelsy by which
it was of late so justly and delightfully enthralled.
I do not know that any extended references to
our topic were brought together before the. appear
ance of a monograph, by the present writer, in which
the substance of this chapter first appeared in print;
nevertheless, within the last decade, during a revival
of the study and translation of the Greek poets, allu
sions to the relations of Tennyson and Theocritus
have been made, and parallel passages occasionally
noted, as by Thackeray in his Anthology, and by
Snow in his appendix to the Clarendon school edi
tion of Theocritus, such waifs confirming me in my
recognition of the evidence on which the foregoing
statements are adventured. But, even now, many of
the Laureate's reviewers, while noticing the " itera
tion " of his refrains, the arrangement of his idyllic
songs, etc., seem to be unconscious of the influences
under which these at the outset were produced.

THE ALEXANDRIAN AGE.


Let us briefly consider the likeness of the Victorian
to the Alexandrian age. The latter covered the time
wherein the city, by which Alexander marked the
splendor of his western conquests, was the capital
of a new Greece, and had grouped within it all that
was left of Hellenic philosophy, beauty, and power.
Latin thought and imagination were still in their
dawning, and Alexandria was the centre, the new
Athens, of the civilized world. But the period, if
not that of a decadence, was reflective, critical, schol
arly, rather than creative ; a comfortable era, in which
to live and enjoy the gathered harvests of what had
gone before. All the previous history of Greece led
up to the high Alexandrian refinement. Her litera
ture had completed a round of four hundred years,
of which the first three centuries, in the slower prog
ress of national adolescence, comprised an epic and
lyric period, reaching from Homer and Hesiod to
Anacreon and Pindar. The remainder was the golden
Attic age, the time of the Old, Middle, and New
Comedy, of the dramatists from ^Eschylus to Aris
tophanes. Greek poetry then passed its noontide ;
the Alexandrian school arose, flourishing for two
centuries before the birth of Christ.
Literary accomplishments now were widely diffused.
There was a mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease.
Tact and scholarship so abounded, that it was diffi
cult to draw the line between talent and genius.
We see a period of scholia and revised and anno
tated editions of the elder writers; wherein was done
for Homer, Plato, the Hebrew Scriptures, what is
now doing for Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe.
Philology came into being, and criticism began to
clog the fancy. Schoell says that "the poets were

205

2o6

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.

deeply read, but wanting in imagination, and often


also in judgment." It was impossible for most to
rise above the influence of the time. Science, how
ever, made great strides. In material growth it was
indeed a " wondrous age," an era of inventions,
travel, and discovery : the period of Euclid and Ar
chimedes ; of Ptolemy with his astronomers ; of Hiero,
with his galleys long as clipper-ships ; of academies,
museums, theatres, lecture-halls, gymnasia ; of a hun
dred philosophies ; of geographers, botanists, casuists,
scholiasts, reformers, and what not, all springing
into existence and finding support in the luxurious,
speculative, bustling, news-devouring hurly-burly of
that strangely modern Alexandrian time.
Distinction
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the analogy which
between the
my
readers already have drawn for themselves. It
Greek and
English
is
not
an even one. There is no parallel between
tongues.
the Greek and English languages. The former is
copious, but simple, and a departure from the Attic
purity was in itself a decline to vagueness and af
fectation. Our own tongue grows richer and stronger
every year. Again, though England has also passed
through great dramatic and lyric periods, our modern
cycles are not of antique duration, but are likely to
repeat themselves again and again. Our golden year
is shorter, and the seasons in their turns come often
round. Nevertheless, at the close of the poetical
renaissance which marked the first quarter of the
nineteenth century, English literature drifted into an
indecisive, characterless period, bearing a resemblance
to that of Alexandria when Ptolemy Philadelphus
commenced his reign.
Ptolemy 11.
That liberal and ambitious monarch confirmed the
structure of an empire, and made the capital city
Schoell:
Hist, de la
Litl.
Grecoue
Profane.

THE GREEK IDYLLIC SCHOOL.


attractive and renowned. The wisest and most fa
mous scholars resorted to his court, but not even
imperial patronage could restore the lost spirit of
Greek creative art. There was a single exception.
A poet of original and abounding genius, nurtured
in the beautiful island of Sicily, where the sky and
sea are bluer, the piny mountains, with ^Etna at
their he,ad, more kingly, the breezes fresher, the
rivulets more musical, and the upland pastures greener
than upon any other shores which the Mediterranean
borders, such a poet felt himself inspired to utter
a fresh and native melody, even in that over-learned
and bustling time. Disdaining any feeble variations
of worn-out themes, he saw that Greek poetry had
achieved little in the delineation of common, every
day life, and so flung himself right upon nature,
which he knew and reverenced well ; and erelong the
pastoral and town idyls of Theocritus, with their
amcebean dialogue and elegant occasional songs, won
the ear of both the fashionable and critical worlds.
Although his subjects were entirely novel, he availed
himself, in form, of all his predecessors' arts ; com
posing in the new Doric, the most liquid, colloquial,
and flexible of the dialects : and thus he fashioned
his eididlia,- little pictures of real life upon the hill
side and in the town, among the high and low,
portraying characters with a few distinct touches in
lyric, epic, or dramatic form, and often by a com
bination of the whole. It is not my province here
to show who were his immediate teachers, or from
what rude island ditties and mimes he conceived and
shaped his art; only, to state that Theocritus found
one field of verse then unworked, and so availed
himself of it as to make it his own, capturing the

207

208

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


hearts of those who still loved freshness and beauty,
and forthwith attaining such excellence that the relics
left us by him and two of his pupils are even now
the wonder and imitation of mankind. A few sen
tences from Charles Kingsley's reference to the father
of idyllic poetry tell the truth as simply and clearly
as it can be told :
" One natural strain is heard amid all this artificial jingle,
that of Theocritus. It is not altogether Alexandrian.
Its sweetest notes were learnt amid the chestnut-groves
and orchards, the volcanic glens and sunny pastures of
Sicily ; but the intercourse between the courts of Hiero and
the Ptolemies seems to have been continual. Poets and
philosophers moved freely from one to the other, and found
a like atmosphere in both
One can well conceive the
delight which his idyls must have given to the dusty Alex
andrians, pent up forever between sea and sand-hills, drink
ing the tank-water and never hearing the sound of a run
ning stream; whirling, too, forever, in all the bustle and
intrigue of a great commercial and literary city. To them
and to us also. I believe Theocritus is one of the poets
who will never die. He sees men and things, in his own
light way, truly ; and he describes them simply, honestly,
with littie careless touches of pathos and humor, while he
floods his whole scene with that gorgeous Sicilian air, like
one of Titian's pictures ; . . . . and all this told in a lan
guage and a metre which shapes itself almost unconsciously,
wave after wave, into the most luscious song."
It was in this wise that Theocritus founded and
endowed the Greek idyllic school. Let us see how
Tennyson, living in a somewhat analogous period,
may be compared with him. How far has the repre
sentative idyllist of the nineteenth century profited
by the example of his prototype? To what extent is
the one indebted to the other for the structure, the

GROWTH OF THE LAUREATE'S STYLE.


manner, it may be even the matter, of many of his
poems ?
We are uninformed of the year in which the boy
Tennyson was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge,
but find him there in 1829, taking the chancellor's
gold medal for English verse ; this by the poem " Timbuctoo," a creditable performance for a lad of nine
teen, and favored with the approval of the " Athenaeum."
It was thought to show traces of Milton, Shelley, and
Wordsworth. In the years 1826- 1829 a Cambridge
reprint was made of the Kiessling edition of Theoc
ritus, Bion, and Moschus, including a Doric Lexicon,
the whole in two octavo volumes ; an excellent text
and commentary, and altogether the most noticeable
English edition of the Sicilian poets since that superb
Oxford Theocritus, edited by the laureate, Warton,
which appeared in 1770. The publication of a Cam
bridge text must have directed unusual attention to
the study of these classics, and if Tennyson did not
place them upon his list for the public examinations,
there can be little doubt that he at this time famil
iarized himself with their difficult and exquisite verse.
His present admiration of them is well known.
I have shown that in his early poems we find an
open loyalty to Wordsworth's canon of reliance upon
nature, and occasionally Wordsworth's mannerism
and language, with something of the music of Shelley
and the sensuous beauty of Keats. A study of old
English ballad-poetry is also apparent. The influence
of the great Italian poets is quite marked ; whether
by reflection from the Chaucerian and Elizabethan
periods, or by more direct absorption, it is difficult to
pronounce. The truth was, that the poet began his
career at an intercalary, transition period. To quote
N

209

2IO

The remit
an idyllic
method.

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


from a eulogistic book-note by E. A. Poe : " Matters
were now verging to their worst ; and, at length, in
Tennyson, poetic inconsistency attained its extreme.
But it was precisely this extreme which wrought
in him a natural and inevitable revulsion ; leading
him first to contemn, and secondly to investigate,
his early manner, and finally to winnow from its
magnificent elements the truest and purest of all po
etical styles."
In all that concerns form the young poet soon
found himself in sympathy with the Greek idyllic
compositions. He saw the opportunity for work
after these models, and willingly yielded himself to
their beautiful influence. It has never left him, but
is present in his latest and most sustained produc
tions. But there is a difference between his maturer
work which is the adjustment of the idyllic method
to native, modern conceptions, with a delightful pres
entation of English landscape and atmosphere, and
the manners and dialects of English life and the
experimental, early poems, which were written upon
antique themes. Of these " (Enone " and " The LotosEaters" appeared in the collection of 1832, and in
the same volume are other poems appealing more
directly to modern sympathies, which show traces of
the master with whom Tennyson had put his genius
to school.
III.

Two kinds
ofresem
blance.

There are two modes in which the workmanship


of one poet may resemble that of another. The first,
while not subjecting an author to the charge of direct
appropriation, in the vulgar sense of plagiarism, is

iHYLAS' AND 'GODIVA:


detected by critical analogy, and, of the two, is more
easily recognized by the skilled reader. It is the
mode which involves either a sympathetic treatment
of rhythmical breaks, pauses, accents, alliterations ;
a correspondence of the architecture of two poems,
with parallel interludes and effects ; correspondence
of theme, allowing for difference of place and period ;
or, a correspondence of scenic and metrical purpose ;
in fine, general analogy of atmosphere and tone.
The second, more obvious and commonplace, mode
is that displaying immediate coincidence of structure,
language, and thought ; a mode which, in the hands
of inferior men, leaves the users at the mercy of their
dullest reviewers.
A citation of passages, exemplifying these two kinds
of resemblance between the Sicilian idyls and the
poetry of Tennyson, will confirm and illustrate the
statements upon which this chapter is based. The
instance first set forth is that of a general, and not
the special, likeness ; but no subsequent attempt is
made to classify the obligations of our modern poet
to the ancient, as it is believed that the reader will
easily distinguish for himself the significant analogies
in each collection.
"Hylas," the celebrated thirteenth idyl of Theoc
ritus, is one of the most perfect which have come
down to our time. It is not a bucolic poem, but
classified as narrative or semi-epic in character, yet
exhibits many touches of the bucolic sweetness ; is a
poem of seventy-five verses, written in the honeyflowing pastoral hexameter, so distinct, in caesura
and dactylic structure, from the verse of Homer, and
commencing thus :

21 1

212

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


"Not only for ourselves the God begat
Eros whoever, Nicias, was his sire
As once we thought ; nor unto us the first
Have lovely things seemed lovely ; not to us
Mortals, who cannot see beyond a day ;
But he, that heart of brass, Amphitry6n's son,
Who braved the ruthless lion, he, too, loved
A youth, the graceful Hylas." 1
As a counterpart to this, and directly modelled
upon it in form, take the " Godiva " of Tennyson,
that lovely and faultless poem, whose rhythm is full
of the melodious quality which gives specific distinc
tion to the Laureate's blank-verse ; a " flower," of
which so many followers now have the " seed " that
it has taken its place as the standard idyllic meas
ure of our language.
"Godiva" is a narrative or semi-epic idyl, which,
like the " Hylas," contains after a didactic pre
lude, divided from the story proper just seventy-five
verses, and commences thus :
" Not only we, the latest seed of time,
New men, that in the flying of a wheel
* This translation, and many which follow, I have rendered in
blank-verse, not because I deem that measure at all adequate
in effect to the original. But even a tolerable version in " Eng
lish hexameter " would require more labor than is needful for
our immediate purpose ; and again, blank-verse is the form in
which the English poet chiefly has availed himself of his Dorian
models. I have translated most of the passages as rapidly as
possible ; only taking care, first, that my versions should be lit
eral ; secondly, that by no artifice they should seem to resemble
the work of Tennyson any more closely than in fact they do.
Scholars will recall the fact that the text of the Bucolicorum
Gr/zcorum Reliquiis is greatly in dispute. In some instances the
editions which I have followed may differ from their wonted
readings.

' cenone:
Cry down the past, not only we, that prate
Of rights and wrongs, have loved the people well,
And loathed to see them overtaxed ; but she
Did more, and underwent, and overcame,
The woman of a thousand summers back,
Godiva, wife to that grim Earl, who ruled
In Coventry "
But it is in the " GEnone " that we discover Tenny
son's earliest adaptation of that refrain which was a
striking beauty of the pastoral elegiac verse.
is the analogue
" O mother
of (Theocr.,
Ida, hearken
II.) ere I die,"
" See thou, whence came my love, O lady Moon " ;
of the refrain to the lament of Daphnis (Theocr., I.),
" Begin, dear Muse, begin the woodland song " ;
and of the recurrent wail in the "Epitaph of Bion"
(Mosch., III.),
" Begin, Sicilian Muses, begin the song of your sorrow ! "
Throughout
ing are strictly
the and
poemnobly
the Syracusan
maintainedmanner
; and, while
and feel
we
are considering " CEnone," a few points of more exact
resemblance may be noted :
The Thalysia (Theocr., VII. 21-23).
" Whither at noonday dost thou drag thy feet ?
For now the lizard sleeps upon the wall,
The crested lark is wandering no more "
The Enchantress (Theocr., II. 38-41).
"Lo, now the sea is silent, and the winds
Are hushed. Not silent is the wretchedness
Within my breast ; but I am all aflame
With love for him who made me thus forlorn,
A thing of evil, neither maid nor wife."

213

214

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


T%e Young Herdsman (Theocr., XX. 19, 20; 30, 31).
" O shepherds, tell me truth ! Am I not fair ?
Hath some god made me, then, from what I was.
Off-hand, another being ? . . . .
Along the mountains all the women call
Me beautiful, all love me."
" For now the noonday
QEnone.
quiet holds the hill :
The grasshopper is silent in the grass :
The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,
Rests like a shadow, and the cicala sleeps.
The purple flowers droop : the golden bee
Is lily-cradled : I alone awake.
My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,"
My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,
And I am all aweary of my life.
" Yet, mother Ida, hearken ere I die.
Fairest why fairest wife ? Am I not fair !
My love hath told me so a thousand times.
Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday," etc.

" The LotosEaiers"

"The Lotos-Eaters," another imaginative present


ment of an antique theme, full of Tennyson's ex
cellences, no less than of early mannerisms since fore
gone, while Gothic in some respects, is charged
from beginning to end with the effects and very lan
guage of the Greek pastoral poets. As in "CEnone,"
there is no consecutive imitation of any one idyl ; but
the work is curiously filled out with passages bor
rowed here and there, as the growth of the poem
recalled them at random to the author's mind. The
idyls of Theocritus often have been subjected to this
1 "Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief."
Second Part of /Cine Uenrt VI , Act II. Sc. 3.

'THE lotos-eaters:
process ; first, by Virgil, in several of whose eclogues
the component parts were culled from his master, as
one selects from a flower-plot a white rose, a red, A culling
process.
and then a sprig of green, to suit the exigencies of
color, while the wreath grows under the hand. Pope,
among moderns, has followed the method of Virgil,
as may be observed in either of his four " Pastorals."
The process used by Pope is tame, artificial, and
avowed ; in " The Lotos-Eaters " it is subtile, mas
terly, yet of a completeness which only parallel quo
tations can display.
The Argonauts (Theocr., XIII.) come in the after
noon unto a land of cliffs and thickets and streams;
of meadows set with sedge, whence they cut for their
couches sharp flowering-rush and the low galingale.
" In the afternoon " the Lotos-Eaters " come unto a
land " where
"Through mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Bordered with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale."
Except the landscape, all this, in either poem, is after i
Homer, from the ninth book of the Odyssey.
" Choric Song " follows, of them to whom

The

" Evermore
Most weary seemed the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam " ;
and in this, the feature of the poem, are certain coin
cidences to which I refer:
Europa (Mosch., II. 3, 4).
" When Sleep, that sweeter on the eyelids lies
Than honey, and doth fetter down the eyes
With gentle bond."

2l6

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


The Wayfarers (Theocr., V. 50, 51).
" Here, if you come, your feet shall tread on wool,
The fleece of lambs, softer than downy Sleep."
Ibid. (45-49)"Here are the oaks, and here is galingale,
Here bees are sweetly humming near their hives;
Here are twin fountains of cool water; here
The birds are prattling on the trees, the shade
Is deeper than beyond ; and here the pine
From overhead casts down to us its cones."
Ibid.
" More(31,sweetly
34). will you sing
Propt underneath the olive, in these groves.
Here are cool waters plashing down, and here
The grasses spring ; and here, too, is a bed
Of leafage, and the locusts babble here."
The Choice (Mosch., V. 4- 13).
'When the gray deep has sounded, and the sea
Climbs up in foam and far the loud waves roar,
I seek for land and trees, and flee the brine,
And earth to me is welcome : the dark wood
Delights me, where, although the great wind blow,
The pine-tree sings. An evil life indeed
The fisherman's, whose vessel is his home,
The sea his toil, the fish his wandering prey.
But sweet to me to sleep beneath the plane
Thick-leaved ; and near me I would love to hear
The babble of the spring, that murmuring
Perturbs him not, but is the woodman's joy."
The Lotos-Eaters.
"Music, that gentlier on the spirit lies
Than
Music tired
that brings
eyelids sweet
upon sleep
tired eyes
down; from the blissful skies.
" Here are cool mosses deep,
And through the moss the ivies creep,

THE LAUREATE'S ENGLISH IDYLS.


And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
Lo ! sweetened with the summer light
The full-juiced apple, waxen over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
To watch the emerald-colored water falling
Through
Only to hear
manyand
a woven
see theacanthus-wreath
far-off sparklingdivine
brine,!
Only to hear were sweet, stretched out beneath the pine.
Hateful is the dark blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark blue sea.
Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave ?
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone.
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream."
Dismissing these two poems, the earlier of Tenny
son's experiments upon classical myths, let us look at
another class of idyls, wherein the Theocritan method
is adapted to modern themes ; where the form is Do
rian, but the feeling, color, and thought are thoroughly
and naturally English. Of " Godiva " I have already
spoken, and the Laureate's rural compositions in
blank-verse are directly in point, reflecting every fea
ture of the so-called " pastoral idyls " of Theocritus.
"The Gardener's Daughter," "Audley Court," "Walk-

217

218

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


ing to the Mail," " Edwin Morris, or the Lake," and
" The Golden Year" are modelled upon such patterns
as "The Thalysia," "The Singers of Pastorals," "The
Rival Singers," and "The Triumph of Daphnis." In
all of them, cultured and country-loving friends are
sauntering, resting, singing, sometimes lunching in
the open air among the hills, the waters, and the
woods ; in all of them there is dialogue, healthful
philosophy, a wealth of atmosphere and color ; and
in nearly all we see for the first time successfully
handled in English and made really melodious the
true isometric song as found in Theocritus. The effects
of this are not produced by any change to a strictly
lyrical measure, but it is composed in the metre of
the whole poem; the Greek, of course, in hexam
eter, the English, in unrhymed iambic-pentameter
verse. Still, it is a song, with stanzaic divisions into
distiches, triplets, quatrains, etc., as the case may be.
As in Theocritus, so in Tennyson, two songs by rival
comrades sometimes are balanced against each other;
a love-ditty against a proverbial or worldly-wise lyric,
the latter, in the modern idyl, frequently rising to
the height of modern faith and progress. These
" blank-verse songs," as they are termed, are a spe
cial beauty of the Laureate's verse. Where each
stanza has a refrain or burden, as in "Tears, idle
tears," "Our enemies have fallen, have fallen," etc.,
they partake both of the bucolic and elegiac manner;
but elsewhere Tennyson's personages discourse against
each other as in the eclogues proper. For example,
the two songs in "Audley Court,"
" Ah ! who would fight and march and countermarch ? "
" Sleep, Ellen Aubrey, sleep and dream of me ! "

ISOMETRIC SONG.
are the Doppelganger, so to speak, of the ditties sung
respectively by Milo and Battus, in " The Harvesters "
(Theocr., X.). Thirteen of these songs, many of them
in " riddling triplets of old time," are scattered through
"Audley Court," "The Golden Year," "The Prin
cess," and the completed " Idyls of the King." And
where Tennyson's rustic and civic graduates content
themselves with jest and debate, it is after a semiamcebean fashion, which no student of the Syracusan
idyls can fail to recognize.
Even in " The Gardener's Daughter " there are pas
sages which respond to the verse of Theocritus. That
simply perfect idyl, " Dora," and such pieces as " The
Brook " and " Sea-Dreams," are more original, yet
the legitimate outgrowth of the antique school. The
blank-verse idyls of Tennyson, though connecting him
with Theocritus, do not establish a ratio between the
relations of the ancient and the modern poet to their
respective periods. The Laureate is a more genuine,
because more independent and English, idyllist and
lyrist in "The May Queen," "The Miller's Daugh- "TiuMa,
ter,"
"Northern
"The Farmer,
Talking Old
Oak,"
Style."
"The Theocritus
Grandmother,"
created and
his V*-""*
OTvn school, with no models except those obtainable
from the popular mimes and catches of his own re
gion ; just as Burns, availing himself of the simple Buna.
Scottish ballads, lifted the poetry of Scotland to an
eminent and winsome individuality.

IV.
The co-relations of Theocritus and Tennyson lie in Theocritut
and Ten
the fact that our poet discovered years ago that a nyson.
period had arrived for poetry of the idyllic or com-

220

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


posite order ; and that much of the manner, form,
and language of the latter is directly taken from the
former. Mr. Tennyson's marurer poems, " The Prin
cess" and "The Idyls of the King," are written
Dorian-wise. " The Holy Grail " and its associate
legendary pieces occupy the same position in his lifework which those semi-epic poems, " The Dioscuri,"
" The Infant Heracles," and " Heracles the LionSlayer " hold in the relics of Theocritus.
The
" Morte d'Arthur " is written as he would have trans
lated Homer, judging from his version of a passage
in the Iliad, and was composed years before the other
" Idyls of the King," and in a noticeably different
style. For all this, especially in the speech of the
departing Arthur, it is semi-idyllic, to say the least ;
a grand poem, a chant without a discord, strong
throughout with ringing, monosyllabic Saxon verse.
The Swallow Song, in "The Princess," is modelled
upon the isometric songs in the third and eleventh
idyls of Theocritus, bearing a special likeness to the
lover's serenade in Idyl III., as divided by Ahrens
and others into stanzas of three verses each. There
is also some correspondence of imagery :
The Serenade "(Theocr.,
Would that
III. I 12-14).
were
The humming-bee, to pass within thy cave,
Thridding the ivy and the feather-fern
By which thou 'rt hidden."
Cyclops (Theocr., XI. 54-57).
" O that I had been born a thing with fins
To sink anear thee, and to kiss thy hands,
If thou deniedst thy mouth, and now to bring
White lilies to thee, and the red-leaved bloom
Of tender poppies ! "

MINOR RESEMBLANCES.

221

The Princess (Book IV.).


" O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light
Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill,
And chirp and twitter twenty million loves."
"O were I thou that she might take me in,
And lay me in her bosom, and her heart
Would rock the snowy cradle till I died."
triad.
reminiscences
isolated
Throughout
Where
passages
the
oftheverses
which
thought
workalso
inof
ortheseem
Tennyson
image
relics
toofof
besuch
we
the
reflections
meet
Syracusan
a passage
with
or """A1*"'^ifcuT/o"
Misceiiane-

is of a familiar type, common to many classical writers,


there is often a flavor about it to indicate that its im
mediate inspiration was caught from Theocritus, Bion,
or Moschus. One of the following comparisons, how
ever, can only be made between the two poets from
whom it is derived. Many have been struck by the
novelty, no less than the fitness, of an image which
I will quote from "Enid." Nothing in earlier Eng
lish poetry suggests it, and I was surprised to find a
conceit, which, with a shade of difference, is so akin,
in the semi-epic fragment of " The Dioscuri." The
modern verse and image are the more excellent :
The Dioscuri (Theocr., XXII. 46-50).
" His massive breast and back were rounded high
With flesh of iron, like that of which is wrought
A forged colossus. On his stalwart arms,
Sheer over the huge shoulder, standing out
Were muscles, like the rolled and spheric stones,
Which, in its mighty eddies whirling on,
The winter-flowing stream hath worn right smooth
This side and that."

222

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


Enid.
" And bared the knotted column of his throat,
The massive square of his heroic breast,
And arms on which the standing muscle sloped
As slopes a wild brook o'er a little stone,
Running too vehemently to break upon it."
Pastorals (Theocr., IX. 31, 32).
" Dear is cicala to cicala, dear
The ant to ant, and hawk to hawk, but I
Hold only dear to me the Muse and Song."
" ' The crane,' IThe
said,Princess
' may chatter
(Book III.).
of the crane,
The dove may murmur of the dove, but I
An eagle clang an eagle to the sphere.' "
The Syracusan Gossips (Theocr., XV. 102 - 105).
" How fair to thee the gentle-footed Hours
Have brought Adonis back from Acheron !
Sweet Hours, and slowest of the Blessed Ones :
But still they come desired, and ever bring
Gifts to all mortals." 1
Love and Duty.
"The slow, sweet Hours that bring us all things good,
The slow, sad Hours that bring us all things ill,
And all things good from evil."
The Bridal of Helen (Theocr., XVIII. 47, 48).
" In Dorian letters on the bark
We '11 carve for men to see,
Pay honor to me, all who mark,
For I am Helen's tree.'''
1 " IOfthought
the sweet
howyears,
once the
Theocritus
dear andhadwished-for
sung years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young."
Mrs. Browning, Sonnets from the Portuguese.

MINOR RESEMBLANCES.
The Talking Oak.
"But tell me, did he read the name
I carved with many vows,
When last with throbbing heart I came
To rest beneath thy boughs ?
"And I will work in prose and rhyme,
And praise thee more in both,
Than bard has honored beech or lime," etc.
The Little Heracles (Theocr. XXIV., 7-9).
" Sleep ye, my babes,
(Alcmene's
a sweet
Lullaby.)
and healthful sleep !
Sleep safe, ye brothers twain that are my life :
Sleep, happy now, and happy wake at morn."
" Sleep
" Cradle
and Song,"
rest, sleep
in The
andPrincess.
rest,
Father will come to thee soon !
Rest, rest, on mother's breast,
Father will come to thee soon !
Sleep, my little one, sleep, my pretty one, sleep."
Epitaph of Bion (Mosch., HI. 68, 69).
" Thee Cypris holds more dear than that last kiss
She gave Adonis, as he lay a-dying."
Tears, Idle Tears.
"Dear as remembered kisses after death."
Bion (III. 16).
"Where neither cold of frost, nor sun, doth harm us."
Morte a"Arthur.
" Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow."

223

224

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


The Triumph of Daphnis (Theocr., VIII. 90, 91).
" But as the other pined, and in his heart
Smouldered with grief, even so a girl betrothed
Still feels regret."
("A maid first parting from her home might wear as sad a face."
Calverley's Transl.)
In Memoriam (XXXIX.).
" When crowned with blessing she doth rise
To take her latest leave of home,
And hopes and light regrets that come
Make April of her tender eyes."
The Distaff (Theocr., XXVIII. 24, 25).
" For, seeing thee, one to his friend shall say :
Lo, what a grace enriches this poor gift !
All gifts from friends are ever gifts of worth."
" Diamonds for me ! theyElaine.
had been thrice their worth,
Being your gift, had you not lost your own.
To loyal hearts the value of all gifts
Must vary as the giver's." 1
Cyclops (Theocr., XI. 25-29).
" For I have loved
(Loveyou,
at maiden,
first sight.)
since you first,
A-gathering hyacinths from yonder mount,
Came with my mother, and I was your guide.
So, having seen you once, I could not cease
To love you from that time, nor can I now."
The Gardener's
" But she,
Daughter.
a rose
In roses, mingled with her fragrant toil,
1 But see, also, Hamlet (III. 1):
"And with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich : their perfume lost,
Take these again ; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor, when givers prove unkind."

MINOR RESEMBLANCES.

225

Nor heard us come, nor from her tendance turned


Into the world without
So home I went, but could not sleep for joy,
Reading her perfect features in the gloom.
Love at first sight, first-born and heir of all,
Made this night thus."
There are passages of another class, in Mr. Ten Minor re
semblances.
nyson's verse, which bear a common likeness to the
work of various classical poets, his university studies
retaining their influence over him through life. In
some of these, by brief touches, he reproduces the
whole picture of a Greek idyl :
Europa (Mosch., II. 125 - 130).
" But she, upon the ox-like back of Zeus
Sitting, with one hand held the bull's great horn,
And with the other her garment's purple fold
Drew upward, that the infinite hoary spray
Of the salt ocean might not drench it through ;
The while Europa's mantle by the winds
Was filled and swollen like a vessel's sail,
Buoying the maiden onward."
The Palace of Art.
" Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped
From off her shoulder backward borne :
From one hand drooped a crocus ; one hand grasped
The wild bull's golden horn."
Elsewhere, in the " Europa," the heroine is said to
"shine most eminent, as the Foam-Born among her
Graces three." Tennyson's classical feeling is so
strong, that, in the closing scene of " The Princess,"
at the height of his dramatic passion, he stops to
draw a picture of Aphrodite coming "from barren
deeps to conquer all with love," and follows the god10*
o

226

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


dess even to her Graces, who " decked her out for
worship without end." Both the ancient and modern
idyllists are mindful of the second Homeric Hymn
to Aphrodite ; and the excursus of the latter poet is
so beautiful that we forgive him for delaying the
action of his poem. In his other classical allusions
such phrases as "the cold-crowned snake," "the
charm of married brows," "softer than sleep," "like
a dog he hunts in dreams," " thou comest, much
wept-for ! " and " sneeze out a full God-bless-you right
and left," repeat not only the language of Theocritus
and his pupils, but of Homer, Anacreon, and the
Latin Lucretius and Catullus.
The lover's song, "It is the Miller's Daughter," is
an exquisite imitation of the sixteenth ode of Anac
reon. Often, however, the Laureate enriches his ro
mantic and epic poems with effects borrowed from
Gothic, mediaeval sources. A reference, for example,
to the " Theatre Frangais au Moyen Age," printed
by Monmerque* in 1839, will discover the miracle-play
from which he obtained something more than a hint
for the isometric burden, " Too late, too late ! ye
cannot enter now."
Alliterations and rhymes within lines, graces of
poetry in which Tennyson has excelled English prede
cessors, are a continuous excellence of his Syracusan
teachers. There is a wandering melody, wholly dif
ferent from the sounding Homeric rhythm, and impos
sible for a translator to reproduce, which the author
of " The Princess " has approached in such lines as
these :
" Fly
O Swallow,
to her, and
Swallow,
pipe and
if I woo
couldher,
follow,
and and
makelight."
her mine."

227
-

SIMILAR EFFECTS OF RHYTHM.


"Laborious, orient ivory, sphere in sphere."
" The lime a summer home of murmurous wings."
" Ran riot, garlanding the gnarled boughs
With bunch and berry and flower through and through."
" The flower of all the west and all the world."

" And in the meadow tremulous aspen-trees


And poplars made a noise of falling showers."
" Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet,
Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees."
These effects, which the Laureate employs with such
variation and continuance that the resultant style is
known as Tennysonian, were Dorian first of all.
Whole idyls of Theocritus, composed in the flexible
bucolic hexameter, are a succession of melodies which
are simply consonant with the genius of the new Doric
tongue. The four English verses last cited above are
curiously imitated from the musical passage in the
first idyl (Theocr., I. 7, 8).
" Sweeter thy song, O shepherd, than the sound
Of yon Joud stream, falling adown, adown,"
combined with the alliterative line, which mimics the
murmuring of bees (Theocr., V. 46),
t55e Kttkbv (3ofj.(3eviTi xotI atidveffffi ^Xiffffai.
It may be said, generally, that our poet imitates the
Sicilians, and them alone, of all his classical models,
in the persistent ease with which sound, color, form,
and meaning are allied in his compositions. False
notes are never struck, and no discordant hues are
admitted.

228

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.

This chapter has extended beyond its proposed


limits, but, ere dismissing the theme, I will cite two
more examples in which Mr. Tennyson has very
closely followed his prototype. The first is that
" small sweet idyl " in the seventh division of " The
Princess " ; possibly, so far as objective beauty and
finish are concerned, the nonpareil of the whole poem.
It is an imitation of the apostrophe of Polyphemus
to Galatea, and never were the antique and modern
feelings more finely contrasted : the one, clear, simple,
childlike, perfect (in the Greek) as regards melody
and -tone ; the other, nobler, more intellectual, the an
tique body with the modern soul. The substitution
of the mountains for the sea, as the haunt of the
beloved nymph, is the Laureate's only departure from
the material employed by Theocritus :
" Come thou
Cyclops
to me,
(Theocr.,
and thou
XI. 42-49,
shalt have
60-66).
no worse ;
Leave the green sea to stretch itself to shore !
More sweetly shalt thou pass the night with me
In yonder cave ; for laurels cluster there,
And slender-pointed cypresses ; and there
Is the dark ivy, the sweet-fruited vine ;
There the cool water, that from shining snows
Thick-wooded jEtna sends, a draught for gods.
Who these would barter for the sea and waves?
There are oak fagots and unceasing fire
Beneath the ashes
Now will I learn to swim, that I may see
What pleasure thus to dwell in water depths
Thou ftndest! Nay, but, Galatea, come!
Come thence, and having come, forget henceforth,
As I (who tarry here), to seek thy home !

THE 'SHEPHERD'S IDYL:

229

And mayst thou love with me to feed the flocks


And milk them, and to press the cheese with me,
Curdling their milk with rennet."
" Come down, OThemaid,
Princess
from(Book
yonder
VII.).
mountain height :
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),
In height and cold, the splendor of the hills ?
But cease to move so near the heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him ; by the happy threshold he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spurted purple of the vats,
Or fox-like in the vine : . . . .
.... Let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope ....
. . . . but come ; for all the vales
Await thee ; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee ; the children call, and I,
Thy shepherd, pipe, and sweet is every sound."
The closing example is from " The Thalysia," or
Harvest-Home, which has furnished Mr. Tennyson
with the design for portions of " The Gardener's
Daughter " and " Audley Court." There is no exact
reproduction, but in outline and spirit the passages
herewith compared will be seen to resemble each
other more nearly than others already given, where
the expressions of the Greek text are repeated in the
English adaptation :
The Thalysia (Theocr., VII. I, 2, 130-147).
" It was the day when I and Eucritus
With
Strolledus from
a third,
the Amyntas."
city to the river-side :

"Tie
Thalysia"
and its coun
terparts.

2 SO

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


(After this opening follows a eulogy of the poet's
friends, Phrasidamus and Antigenes.)
" He, leftward turning, sauntered on the road
To Pyxa ; as for Eucritus and me
With handsome young Amyntas, having gained
The house of Phrasidamus, and lain down
On beds of fragrant rushes and on leaves
Fresh from the vines, we took our fill of joy.
Poplars and elms were rustling in the wind
Above us, and a sacred rivulet
From the Nymphs' cave was murmuring anigh.
The red cicalas ceaselessly amid
The shady boughs were chirping; from afar
The tree-frog in the briers chanted shrill ;
The crest-larks and the thistle-finches sang,
The turtle-dove was plaining; tawny bees
Were hovering round the fountain. All things near
Smelt of the ripened summer, all things smelt
Of fruit-time. Pears were rolling at our feet,
And apples for the taking ; to the ground
The plum-tree staggered, burdened with its fruit ;
And we, meanwhile, brushed from a wine-jar's mouth
The pitch, four years unbroken."
The Gardener's Daughter.
" This morning is the morning of the day
When I and Eustace from the city went
To see the Gardener's Daughter :
(After this opening follows a eulogy of Eustace
and Juliet.)
" . . . . All the land in flowery squares,
Beneath a broad and equal-blowing wind,
Smelt of the coming summer. ....
. . . . From the woods
Came voices of the well-contented doves.
The lark could scarce get out his notes for joy,
But shook his song together as he neared

'THE thalysia:

231

"His happy home, the griund. To left and right


The cuckoo told his name to all the hills;
The mellow ouzel fluted in the glen;
The red-cap whistled ; and the nightingale
Sang loud, as though he were the bird of day."
"There, on a slope of
Audley
orchard,
Court.
Francis laid
A damask napkin wrought with horse and hound,
Brought out a dusky loaf that smelt of home,
And, half cut down, a pasty costly made,
Where quail and pigeon, lark and leveret, lay
Like fossils of the rock, with golden yolks
Imbedded and injellied ; last, with these,
A flask of cider from his father's vats
Prime, which I knew."
Each portion of the foregoing English Idyls, so far A close
as quoted, is a reminiscence of some portion of the analogy.
"Thalysia" {mutatis mutandis, with regard to theme,
season, and country), and the general analogy is
equally spirited and remarkable. As for the two
lunches, the one is pure Sicilian, of the fruits of the
orchard and the vine; the other, pure Briton, smack
ing of the cook and the larder. Your true English
man, while sensible of the beauty of the song of the
lark, who can " scarce get out his notes for joy," ap
preciates him none the less when lying "imbedded
and injellied " beneath the crust of " a pasty costly
made." It should be remembered, however, that the
bird does not appear under these differing conditions
in the same idyl.
VI.
A sufficient number of analogous passages have
now been cited to illustrate the homage which the
Laureate has paid to the example of Theocritus, and

TENNYSON AND THEOCRITUS.


the perfection of that art by which he has wedded
his master's method to the spirit and resources of
the English tongue. I have written with genuine rev
erence for Tennyson's work, and with a gratitude, felt
by all who take pleasure in noble verse, for the de
light imparted through many years by the successive
Tennyson productions of his genius. In study of the Sicilian
'ZTorigi'mi models he has been true to his poetic instinct, and
fortunate in discernment of the wants of his day and
generation. Emerson, in an essay on " Imitation and
Originality," has said : " We expect a great man to be
a good reader; or in proportion to the spontaneous
power should be the assimilating power " ; and again,
" There are great ways of borrowing. Genius borrows
nobly. When Shakespeare is charged with debts to
his authors, Landor replies : ' Yet he was more origi
nal than his originals. He breathed upon dead bodies
and brought them to life.'"
It must be acknowledged that somewhat of this
applies to Tennyson's variations upon Theocritus. To
him, also, may be adjudged the credit of being the
first to catch the manner of the classical idyls and
reproduce it in modern use and being. Before his
time Milton and Shelley were the only poets who
measurably succeeded in this attempt, and neither of
them repeated it after a single trial. Other reproducPseudotions of the Greek idyllic form have been by a kind
vme.
01 filtration through the Latin medium ; and often,
by a third remove, after a redistillation of the French
product. The odious result is visible in the absurd
pastorals of "standard British poets," from Dryden
himself and Pope, to Browne, Ambrose Philips, Shenstone, and Gay. Their bucolics have made us sicken
at the very mention of such names as Daphnis and

CLOSE OF THE IDYLLIC PERIOD.


Corydon, soiled as these are with all ignoble use. Ten
nyson revived the true idyllic purpose, adopting the
form mainly as a structure in which to exhibit, with
equal naturalness and beauty, the scenery, thought,
manners, of his own country and time. Assuming
the title of idyllic poet, he made the term "idyl"
honored and understood ; but carried his method to
such perfection, that its cycle seems already near an
end, and a new generation is calling for work of a
different order, for more vital passion and dramatic
power.

233

CHAPTER

VII.

THE GENERAL CHOIR.


* I "HE choral leaders are few in number, and it is
-L from a blended multitude of voices that we de
rive the general tone and volume, at any epoch, of a
nation's poetic song. The miscellaneous poets, singly
or in characteristic groups, give us the pervading
quality of a stated era. Great singers, lifted by
imagination, make style secondary to thought ; or,
rather, the thought of each assumes a correlative
form of expression. Younger or minor contempora
ries catch and reflect the fashion of these forms,
even if they fail to create a soul beneath. It is said
that very great poets never, through this process, have
founded schools, their art having been of inimitable
loftiness or simplicity ; but who of the accepted few,
during recent years, has thus held the unattainable
before the vision of the facile English throng?

The early
situation
and outlook.
A ccession of
Victoria :
June 20,
i837-

At the beginning of the present reign Tennyson


was slowly obtaining recognition, and his influence
had not yet established the poetic fashion of the
time. Wordsworth shone by himself, in a serene and
luminous orbit, at a height reached only after a pro

EARLY SITUATION AND OUTLOOK.


longed career. The death of Byron closed a splendid
but tempestuous era, and was followed by years of
reaction, almost of sluggish calm. At least, the
group of poets was without a leader, and was com
posed of men who, with few great names among them,
utilized their gifts, each after his own method or
after one of that master, among men of the previous
generation, whom he most affected. A kind of in
terregnum occurred. Numbers of minor poets and
scholars survived their former compeers, and wrote
creditable verse, but produced little that was essen
tially new. Motherwell had died, at the early age of
thirty-eight, having done service in the revival of
Scottish ballad-minstrelsy : and with the loss of the
author of that exquisite lyric, " Jeanie Morrison," of
"The Cavalier's Song," and "The Sword-Chant of
Thorstein Raudi," there passed away a vigorous and
sympathetic poet. Southey, Moore, Rogers, Frere,
Wilson, James Montgomery, Campbell, James and
Horace Smith, Croly, Joanna Baillie, Bernard Barton,
Elliott, Cunningham, Tennant, Bowles, Maginn, Pea
cock, poor John Clare, the translators Cary and Lockhart,1 all these were still alive, but had outlived
their generation, and, as far as verse was concerned,
1 Robert Southey, Poet Laureate, 1774- 1843 ; Thomas Moore,
1779- 1852; Samuel Rogers, 1763-1855; Rt. Hon. John Hookham Frere, 1769 -1846; John Wilson, 1785 -1854; Rev. James
Montgomery, 1771 - 1854 ; Thomas Campbell, 1777- 1844; James
Smith, 1775 -1839; Horace Smith, 1779 -1849; Rev. George
Croly, 1780- i860; Joanna Baillie, 1762 -1 851; Bernard Barton,
1784 -1849; Ebenezer Elliott, 1781-1849; Allan Cunningham,
1784- 1842; William Tennant, 1785 -1848; Rev. William Lisle
Bowles, 1762- 1850; William Maginn, 1793 -1842; Thomas Love
Peacock, 1785- 1866; John Clare, 1793 -1864; Rev. Henry
Francis Cary, 1772- 1844; John Gibson Lockhart, 1794- 1854.

235

236

DARLEY. BEDDOES. TA YLOR.


were more or less superannuated. What Landor,
Hood, and Procter were doing has passed already
under review. Leigh Hunt continued his pleasant
verse and prose, and did much to popularize the
canons of art exemplified in the poetry of his former
song-mates, Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats. Milman,
afterward Dean of St. Paul's, a pious and conven
tional poet who dated his literary career from the
success of an early drama, " Fazio," still was writing
plays that did credit to a churchman and Oxford
professor. Talfourd's " Ion " and " The Athenian
Captive " also had made a stage-success : the poets
had not yet discovered that a stage which the talent
of Macready exactly fitted, and a histrionic feeling
of which the plays of Sheridan Knowles had come
to be the faithful expression, were not stimulating to
the production of the highest grade of dramatic
poetry. Various dramas and poems, by that cheery,
versatile authoress, Miss Mitford, had succeeded her
tragedies of "Julian" and " Rienzi." It must be
owned that these three were good names in a day
of which the fashion has gone by. At this distance
we see plainly that they were minor poets, or that
the times were unfriendly to work whose attraction
should be lasting. Doubtless, were they alive and
active now, they would contend for favor with many
whom the present delights to honor.
Meanwhile a few men of genius, somewhat out of
place in their generation, had been essaying dramatic
work for the love of it, but had little ambition or
continuity, finding themselves so hopelessly astray.
Darley, after his first effort, " Sylvia," a crude
but poetical study in the sweet pastoral manner of
Jonson and Fletcher, was silent, except for some

THE SENTIMENTALISTS.
occasional song, full of melody and strange purposelessness. Beddoes, a stronger spirit, author of " The
Bride's Tragedy " and " Death's Jest-Book," wandered
off to Germany, and no collection of his wild and
powerful verse was made until after his decease.
Taylor, whose noble intellect and fine constructive
powers were early affected by the teachings of Words
worth, entered a grand protest against the sentimentalism into which the Byronic passion now had de
generated. He would, I believe, have done even
better work, if this very influence of Wordsworth had
not deadened his genuine dramatic power. He saw
the current evils, but could not substitute a potential
excellence or found an original school. As it is,
" Philip van Artevelde " and " Edwin the Fair " have
gained a place for him in English literature more
enduring than the honors awarded to many popular
authors of his time.
The sentimental feeling of these years was nurtured
on the verse of female writers, Mrs. Hemans and
Miss Landon, whose deaths seemed to have given
their work, always in demand, a still wider reading.
It had been fashionable for a throng of humbler
imitators, including some of gentle blood, to con
tribute to the " annuals " and " souvenirs " of Alaric
Watts, but their summer-time was nearly over and the
chirping rapidly grew faint. The Hon. Mrs. Norton,
styled " the Byron of poetesses," was at the height
of her popularity. A pure religious sentiment in
spired the sacred hymns of Keble. Young Hallam
had died, leaving material for a volume of literary
remains ; if he did not live to prove himself great,
his memory was to be the cause of greatness in
others, and is now as abiding as any fame which

237
Thomas
Love11 Beddoes: 180349Sir Henry
Taylor :
1800- 86.

The senti
mentalists.

The "An
nuals."
A laric
Alexander
Watts:
1799-1864.
Caroline
Elizabeth
Sarah
Norton :
1808- 77Rev. 7ohn
Keble:
1792- 1866.
Arthur
Henry
Hallam :
181 1 -33.

238

FORMATION OF A NEW SCHOOL.


maturity could have brought him. Besides the comic
verse of Hood, noticed in a previous chapter, other
jingling trifles, like Barham's Ingoldsby Legends, a cross
between Hood's whimsicality and that of Peter Pindar,
were much in vogue, and serve to illustrate the broad
and very obvious quality of the humor of the day.
Lastly, Praed, a sprightly and. delicate genius, soon to
die and long to be affectionately lamented, was restor
ing the lost art of writing society-verse, and, in a style
even now modern and attractive, was lightly throw
ing off stanzas neater than anything produced since
theAllwitthis
of was
Canning
light and
enough,
the fancy
and now
of Tommy
seems toMoore.
us to
have betokened a shabby, profitless condition. From
it, however, certain elements were gradually to crys
tallize and to assume definite purpose and form. The
influence of Wordsworth began to deepen and widen ;
and erelong, under the lead of Tennyson, composite
groups and schools were to arise, having clearer ideas
of poetry as an art, and adorning with the graces of
a new culture studies after models derived from the
choicest poetry of every literature and time.

II.
The cyclic aspect of a nation's literary history has
been so frequently observed that any reference to it
involves a truism. The analogy between the courses
through which the art of different countries advances
and declines is no less thoroughly understood. The
country whose round of being, in every department
of effort, is most sharply defined to us, was Ancient
Greece. The rise, splendor, and final decline of her
[imaginative literature constitute the fullest paradigm

HISTORICAL ANALOGY.

239

of a nation's literary existence and of the supporting


laws. In the preceding chapter I have enlarged upon See pages
the active, critical, and learned Alexandrian period, 205, 206.
which succeeded to the three creative stages of Hel
lenic song. I have said that during this epoch the
Hellenic spirit grew elaborately feeble ; what was
once so easily creative became impotent, and at last
entirely died away. Study could not supply the force
of nature. A formidable circle of acquirements must
be formed before one could aspire to the title of an
author. Verbal criticism was introduced ; researches
were made into the Greek tongue ; antique and quaint
words were sought for by the poets, and, to quote
again from Schoell, " they sought to hide their defects
beneath singularity of idea, and novelty and extrava
gance of expression ; while the bad taste of some
displayed itself in their choice of subjects still more
than in their manner of treating them."
In modern times, when more events are crowded Contrast be
tween an
into a decade than formerly occurred in a century, cient and
modem lit
and when civilization ripens, mellows, and declines, erary
cycles.
only to repeat the process in successively briefer
periods, men do not count a decline in national litera
ture a symptom that the national glory is approaching
its end. Still, more than one recurring cycle of Eng
lish literature has its analogue in the entire course
of that of Ancient Greece. And, when we come to
the issue of supremacy in poetic creation, the ques
tion arises whether Great Britain has not recently
been going through a period similar to the Alexan
drian in other respects than the production of a fine
idyllic poet. It is difficult to estimate our own time,
so insensibly does the judgment ally itself to the
graces and culture in vogue. Take up any well-

240

FAMOUS ENGLISH PERIODS.

edited selection from English minor poetry of the last


thirty years, and our first thought is, how full this
is of poetry, or at least of poetic material ! What
Skill and refined sentiment ! what artistic skill ! what elaborate
refinement
0fthe minor metrical successes ! From beginning to end, how
poets.
very readable, high-toned, close, and subtile in thought!
Here and there, also, poems are to be found of the
veritable cast, simple, sensuous, passionate ; but
not so often as to give shape and color to the whole.
With the same standard in view, one could not cull
such a garland from the minor poetry of any portion
of the last century; nor, indeed, from that of any in
terval later than the generation after Shakespeare, and
earlier than the great revival, which numbered Burns,
Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats among the leaders of
an awakened chorus of natural English minstrelsy.
That revival, in its minor and major aspects, was
truly glorious and inspiring. The poets who sus
tained it were led, through the disgust following a
hundred years of false and flippant art, and by some
thing of an intellectual process, to seek again that
full and limpid fountain of nature to which the Eliza
bethan singers resorted intuitively for their draughts.
But the unconscious vigor of that early period was
still more brave and immortal than its philosophical
counterpart in our own century. Ah, those days of
Elizabeth ! of which Mrs. Browning said, in her exult
ant, womanly way, that "full were they of poets as
the summer days are of birds
Never since the
first nightingale brake voice in Eden arose such a
jubilee-concert; never before nor since has such a
crowd of true poets uttered true poetic speech in one
day
Why, a common man, walking through the
earth in those days, grew a poet by position."

THE MEDITATIVE SCHOOL.


Now, have freshness, synthetical art, and sustained A question
241
before the
imaginative power been the prominent endowments of reader.
the recent schools of British minor poets? For an
answer we must give attention to their blended or
distinctive voices, remembering that certain of the ear
liest groups have recruited their numbers, and pro
longed their vitality, throughout the middle and even
the latest divisions of the period under review.

III.
The tone of the first of these divisions upon the
whole was suggested by Wordsworth, while the poetic
form had not yet lost the Georgian simplicity and
profuseness. Filtered through the intervening period
of which we have spoken, its eloquence had grown
tame, its simplicity somewhat barren and prosaic.
Still, both tone and form, continuing even to our day,
are as readily distinguished, by the absence of elabo
rate adornment and of curious nicety of thought, from
those of either the Tennysonian or the very latest
school, as the water of the Mississippi from that of
the Missouri for miles below their confluence. The
poets of the group before us are not inaptly thought
to constitute the Meditative School, characterized by
seriousness, reflection, earnestness, and, withal, by re
ligious faith, or by impressive conscientious bewilder
ment among the weighty problems of modern thought.
The name of Hartley Coleridge here may be recalled.
His poetry, slight in force and volume, yet relieved
by half-tokens of his father's sudden melody and pas
sion, is cast in the mould and phrase of his father's
life-long friend. This mingled quality came by de
scent and early association. The younger Coleridge

Influence of
Words
worth.

The Medi
tative
School.

Rev. Hart
ley Cole
ridge :
1796- 1849.

242

MJTFORD. TRENCH. ALFORD.

(whose beautiful child-picture by Wilkie adds a touch


ing interest to his memoirs) inherited to the full the
physical and psychological infirmities of the elder, with
but a limited portion of that "rapt one's" divine gift.
The atmosphere of his boyhood was full of learning
and idealism. He had great accomplishments, and
had the poetic temperament, with all its weaknesses
and dangers, yet without a coequal faculty of reflec
tion and expression. Hence the inevitable and pa
thetic tragedy of a groping, clouded life, sustained
only by piteous resignation and faith. Several moral
Rev. "John istic poets date from this early period, Mitford,
Mitford:
Trench, Alford, and others of a like religious mood.
1811-58.
Archbishop Trench's work is careful and scholarly,
Richard
Clienevix marked by earnestness, and occasionally rises above
Trench :
1807-86.
a didactic level. Dean Alford's consists largely of
Henry
Wordsworthian sonnets, to which add a poem mod
Alford:
elled upon " The Excursion " ; yet he has written a
1810- 71.
few sweet lyrics that may preserve his name. The
devotional traits of these writers gave some of them
a wider reading, in England and America, than their
scanty measure of inspiration really deserved. Grad
ually they have fallen out of fashion, and again illus
trate the truth that no ethical virtue will compensate
us in art for dulness, didacticism, want of imaginative
A ubrey
fire. Aubrey de Vere, a later disciple of the Cumber
Thomas de
land school, is of a different type, and has shown ver
Vere :
1814satility, taste, and a more natural gift of song. This
gentle poet and scholar, though hampered by too rigid
adoption of Wordsworth's theory, often has an attrac
tive manner of his own. Criticized from the artistic
point of view, a few studies after the antique seem
very terse when compared with his other work. A
late drama, "Alexander the Great," has strength of

DE VERE. BURBIDGE. STERLING.

243

language and construction. The earnestness and pu


rity of his patriotic and religious verses give them
exaltation, and, on the whole, the Irish have a right
to be proud of this most spiritual of their poets,
one who, unlike Hartley Coleridge, has improved upon
an inherited endowment. Returning on our course,
we see in the verse of Burbidge another reflection of Thomas
Burbidge :
Wordsworth, but also something that reminds us of born abeut
the older English poets. As a whole, it is of mid 1816.
dle quality, but so correct and finished that it is
no wonder the author never fulfilled the dangerous
promise of his boyhood. He was a schoolfellow of
Clough, and I am not aware that he ever published
any volume subsequent to that by which this note is
suggested, and which bears the date of 1838. The
relics of Sterling, the subject of Carlyle's familiar me John
moir, like those of Hallam, do not of themselves Sterling*
1806-44.
exhibit the full ground of the biographer's devotion.
The two names, nevertheless, have given occasion re
spectively for the most characteristic poem and the
finest prose memorial of recent times. A few of
Sterling's minor lyrics, such as " Mirabeau," are elo
quent, and, while defaced by conceits and prosaic
expressions, show flashes of imagination which bright
en the even twilight of a meditative poet. Between
the deaths of Sterling and Clough a long interval
elapsed, yet there is a resemblance between them in
temperament and mental cast. It may be said of
Clough, as Carlyle said of Sterling, that he was " a Arthur
Hugh
remarkable soul, .... who, more than others, sensi Clough :
ble to its influences, took intensely into him such tint 1819-61.
and shape of feature as the world had to offer
there and then ; fashioning himself eagerly by what
soever of noble presented itself." It may be said of |

244

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH.

Cp. "Poets him, likewise, that in his writings and actions " there
ofAmer
ica " : pp. is for all true hearts, and especially for young noble
339. 340.
seekers, and strivers towards what is highest, a mirror
in which some shadow of themselves and of their
immeasurably complex arena will profitably present
itself. Here also is one encompassed and struggling
even as they now are." Clough must have been a
rare and lovable spirit, else he could never have so
wrapped himself within the affections of true men.
Though he did much as a poet, it is doubtful whether
his genius reached anything like a fair development.
Intimate as he was with the Tennysons, his style,
while often reflective, remained essentially his own.
His fine original nature was never quite subservient
to passing influences. His free temperament and
radical way of thought, with a manly disdain of all
factitious advancement, made him a force even among
the choice companions attached to his side ; and he
was valued as much for his character and for what he
was able to do, as for the things he actually accom
plished. There was nothing second-rate in his mould,
Clough's
and his Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich, which bears the
hexameter
reader
along less easily than the billowy hexameters
poem.
of Kingsley, is charmingly faithful to its Highland
theme, and has a Doric simplicity and strength. His
shorter pieces are uneven in merit, but all suggestive
and worth a thinker's attention. If he could have
remained in the liberal American atmosphere, and
have been spared his untimely taking-off, he might
have come to greatness ; but he is now no more, and
with him departed a radical thinker and a living
protest
The poetry
againstofthe
Lord
truckling
Houghton
expedients
is of a ofmodem
the mode.
con
templative type, very pure, and often sweetly lyrical.

MILNES. NEWMAN. PALGRA VE.

245

Emotion and intellect blend harmoniously in his deli Richard


cate, suggestive verse, and a few of his songs Monckton
Milnes :
among which " I wandered by the brookside " at 1809-85.
once recurs to the memory have a deserved and
lasting place in English anthology. This beloved
writer has kept within his limitations. He has the
sincere affection of men of letters, who all honor
his free thought, his catholic taste, and his generous
devotion to authors and the literary life. To the
friend and biographer of Keats, the thoughtful patron
of David Gray, and the progressive enthusiast in
poetry and art, I venture to pay this cordial tribute,
knowing that I but feebly repeat the sentiments of a
multitude of authors on either side of the Atlantic.
Dr. Newman has lightened the arduous labors and Rev. John
Henry
controversies of his distinguished career by the com Newman :
position of many thoughtful hymns, imbued with the 1801most devotional spirit of his faith. As representing
the side of obedience to tradition these Verses qf\
Many Years have their significance. At the opposite
pole of theological feeling, Palgrave, just as earnest Francis
Turner
and sincere, seems to illustrate the Laureate's say Palgrave :
1824ing.
" There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds."
Nevertheless, in " The Reign of Law," one of his
best and most characteristic pieces, he argues himself
into a reverential optimism, that seems, just now, to
be the resting-place of the speculative religious mind.
He may be said to represent the latest attitude of
the meditative poets, and in this closely resembles
Arnold, of whom I have already spoken as the most
conspicuous and able modern leader of their school.

246

PL UMP TRE. MYERS. HA MER TON.


Indeed, there is scarcely a criticism which I have
made upon the one that will not apply to the other.
Palgrave, with less objective taste and rhythmical
skill than are displayed in Arnold's larger poems,
is in his lyrics equally searching and philosophical,
and occasionally shows evidence of a musical and
more natural ear. The Biblical legends and narrative
poems of Dr. Plumptre are simple, and somewhat like
those of the American Willis, but didactic and of a
kind going out of vogue. His hymns are much bet
ter, but it is as a classical translator that we find
him at his best. Among the later religious poets
Myers deserves notice for the feeling, careful finish,
and poetic sentiment of his longer pieces. A few of
his quatrain-lyrics are exceedingly delicate ; his son
nets, more than respectable. From the resemblance
of the artist Hamerton's descriptive poetry to that of
Wordsworth, I refer, in this place, to his volume,
The Isles of Loch Awe, and Other Poems, issued in
1859. This dainty book, with its author's illustrations,
is interesting as the production of one who has since
achieved merited popularity both as an artist and
prose author, in either of which capacities he
probably is more at home than if he had followed
the art which gave vent to the enthusiasm of his
younger days. He may, however, be called the tour
ist's poet; his book is an excellent companion to one
travelling northward ; the poems, though lacking terse
ness and force, and written on a too obvious theory,
are picturesque, and, as the author claimed for them
in an appendix, "coherent, and easily understood."
Regarding Palgrave and Arnold, then, as advanced
members of the contemplative group, I renew the
question concerning the freshness and creative in

DOUBTING HEARTS.

247

stinct of this recent school. The unconscious but


uppermost emotion of both is one of doubt and inde
cision : a feeling, I have said, that they were born
too late. They are awed and despondent before the
mysteries of life and nature. As to art, their con
viction is that somehow the glory and the dream
have left our bustling generation for a long, long ab
sence, and may not come again. Palgrave's " Reign AUitude of
Palgrave
of Law," after all, is but making the best of a dark and Arnold.
matter. It reasons too closely to be highly poetical.
The doubts and refined melancholy of his other poetry
reflect the sentiment of the still more subtile Arnold,
from whose writings many a passage such as this may
be taken, to show a dissatisfaction with his mission
and the time :
" Who can see the green Earth any more
As
Whosheimagine
was byher
thefields
sources
as they
of Time
lay ?
Who
In thethinks
sunshine,
as they
unworn
thought,
by the plough ?
The tribes who then lived on her breast,
Her vigorous, primitive sons ?
What Bard,
At the height of his vision, can dream
Of God, of the world, of the soul,
With a plainness as near,
As flashing as Moses felt,
When he lay in the night by his flock
On the starlit Arabian waste ?
Can rise and obey
The beck of the Spirit like him ?
.
And
Forever
we say
the course
that repose
of thehasRiver
fled of Time," etc.
Great or small, the meditative poets lack that elas-

248

A FEW STRONG SINGERS.


ticity which is imparted by a true lyrical period,
whose very life is gladness, with song and art for an
undoubting, blithesome expression. The better class,
thus sadly impressed, and believing it in vain to
grasp at the skirts of the vanishing Muse, are im
pelled to substitute choice simulacra, which culture
and artifice can produce, for the simplicity, sensuousness, and passion, declared by Milton to be the ele
ments of genuine poetry. They are what training
has made them.
Some of the lesser names were
cherished by their readers, in a mild and sterile time,
for their domestic or religious feeling, very few
really for their imagination or art. At last even
sentiment has failed to sustain them, and one by one
they have been relegated to the ever-increasing col
lection of unread and rarely cited " specimen " verse.

IV.
So active a literary period could not fail to devel
op, among its minor poets, singers of a more fresh
and genuine order. Here and there one may be dis
covered whose voice, however cultivated, has been
less dependent upon culture, and more upon emotion
and unstudied art. One of the finest of these, un
questionably, is Horne, author of " Cosmo de' Medici,"
"Gregory the Seventh," "The Death of Marlowe,"
and "Orion." I am not sure that in natural gift he
is inferior to his most famous contemporaries. That
he here receives brief attention is due to the dispro
portion between the sum of his productions and the
length of his career, for he still is an occasional
and eccentric contributor to letters. There is some
thing Elizabethan in Horne's writings, and no less in

RICHARD HENGIST HORNE.


a restless love of adventure, which has borne him
wandering and fighting around the world, and breaks
out in the robust and virile, though uneven, character
of his poems and plays. He has not only, it would
seem, dreamed of life, but lived it. Taken together,
his poetry exhibits carelessness, want of tact and wise
method, but often the highest beauty and power. A
fine erratic genius, in temperament not unlike Beddoes and Landor, he has not properly utilized his
birthright. His verse is not improved by a certain
transcendentalism which pervaded the talk and writ
ings of a set in which he used to move. Thus
Orion was written with an allegorical purpose, which
luckily did not prevent it from being one of the no
blest poems of our time ; a complete, vigorous, highly
imaginative effort in blank-verse, rich with the an
tique imagery, yet modern in thought, and full of
passages that are not far removed from the majestic
beauty of " Hyperion." The author's Ballad Romances,
issued more lately, is not up to the level of his
younger work. While it seems as if Horne's life has
been unfruitful, and that he failed through what
cause I know not to conceive a definite purpose
in art, and pursue it to the end, it must be remem
bered that a poet is subject to laws over which we
have no control, and in his external relations is a
law unto himself. I think we fairly may point to
this one as another man of genius adversely affected
by a period not suited to him, and not as one who
in a dramatic era would be incapable of making any
larger figure. He was the successor of Darley and
Beddoes, and the prototype of Browning, but capable
at his best of more finish and terseness than the lastnamed poet. In most of his productions that have

249
A fine er
ratic genius.

His
" Orion,"
etc.

Horne unsuited to his


period.

MA CA ULA Y. A YTOUN.
reached me, amidst much that is strange and gro
tesque, I find little that is sentimental or weak.
Lord Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome was a liter
ary surprise, but its poetry is the rhythmical outflow
of a vigorous and affluent writer, given to splendor
of diction and imagery in his flowing prose. He
spoke once in verse, and unexpectedly. His themes
were legendary, and suited to the author's heroic cast,
nor was Latinism ever more poetical than under his
thoroughly sympathetic handling. I am aware that
the Lays are criticised as being stilted and false to the
antique, but to me they have a charm, and to almost
every healthy young mind are an immediate delight.
Where in modern ballad-verse will you find more
ringing stanzas, or more impetuous movement and
action ? Occasionally we have a noble epithet or
image. Within his range little as one who met
him might have surmised it Macaulay was a poet,
and of the kind which Scott would have been first to
honor. " Horatius " and " Virginius," among the Ro
man lays, and that resonant battle-cry of "Ivry," have
become, it would seem, a lasting portion of English
verse. In the work of Professor Aytoun, similar in
kind, but more varied, and upon Scottish themes, we
also discern what wholesome and noteworthy verse
may be composed by a man who, if not a poet of
high rank, is of too honest a breed to resort to un
wonted styles, and to measures inconsonant with the
English tongue. The ballads of both himself and
Macaulay rank among the worthiest of their class.
Aytoun's " Execution of Montrose " is a fine produc
tion. In " Bothwell," his romantic poem in the metre
and manner of Scott, he took a subject above his
powers, which are at their best in the lyric before

CHARLES KINGSLEY.
named. Canon Kingsley, as a poet, had a wider
range. His " Andromeda " is an admirable composi
tion, a poem laden with the Greek sensuousness,
yet pure as crystal, and the best-sustained example
of English hexameters produced up to the date of
its composition. It is a matter of indifference whether
the measure bearing that name is akin to the antique
model, for it became, in the hands of Kingsley,
Hawtrey, Longfellow, and Howells, an effective form
of English verse. The author of "Andromeda" re
peated the error of ignoring such quantities as do
obtain in our prosody, and relying upon accent alone ;
but his fine ear and command of words kept him
musical, interfluent, swift. In "St. Maura," and the
drama called "The Saint's Tragedy," the influence
of Browning is perceptible. Kingsley's true poetic fac
ulty is best expressed in various sounding lyrics for
which he was popularly and justly esteemed. These
are new, brimful of music, and national to the core.
" The Sands o' Dee," " The Three Fishers," and " The
Last Buccaneer " are very beautiful ; not studies, but
a true expression of the strong and tender English
heart.
Here we observe a suggestive fact. With few ex
ceptions the freshest and most independent poets of
the middle division those who seem to have been
born and not made have been, by profession and
reputation, first, writers of prose ; secondly, poets.
Their verses appear to me, like their humor, "strength's
rich superfluity." Look at Macaulay, Aytoun, and
Arnold, the first a historian and critie, the others,
essayists and college professors. Kingsley and Thack
eray might have been dramatic poets in a different
time and country, but accepted the romance and

Rev. Charles
Kingsley :
1819-75.

English
hexameter
verse.
Cp. " Poets
0/A merica": pp.
90, 91, and
pp. 195199.

Kingsley's
ballads.

Fresh and
genuine poe
try by nota
ble writers
0fprose.
Cp. "Poets
ofAmer
ica " . pp.
462-464.

252

THORNBURY. THACKERA Y.
novel as affording the most dramatic methods of
the day. Thornbury is widely known by his prose
volumes, but has composed some of the most fiery
and rhythmical songs in the English tongue. His
Ballads of the Neiv World are inferior to his Songs
of the Cavaliers and Roundheads, and to his other lyrics
of war and revolution in Great Britain and France,
which are full of unstudied lyrical power. Some of
these remind us of Browning's " Cavalier Tunes " ;
but Browning may well be proud of the pupil who
wrote " The Sally from Coventry " and " The Three
Scars." He is hasty and careless, and sometimes
coarse and extravagant ; his pieces seem to be struck
off at a heat, but what can be better than " The
Jester's Sermon," " The Old Grenadier's Story," and
" La Tricoteuse " ? How unique the Jacobite Ballads I
Read "The White Rose over the Water." "The
Three Troopers," a ballad of the Protectorate, has a
clash and clang not often resonant in these piping
times :
" Into the Devil tavern
Three booted troopers strode,
From spur to feather spotted and splashed
With the mud of a winter road.
In each of their cups they dropped a crust,
And stared at the guests with a frown ;
Then
' Goddrew
sendtheir
this swords
Crum-well-down
and roared,! ' "for a toast,
I have a feeling that this author has not been
fairly appreciated as a ballad-maker. Equally perfect
of their sort are " The Mahogany-Tree," " The Ballad
of Bouillabaise," " The Age of Wisdom," and " The
End of the Play," all by the kindly hand of Thack
eray, which shall sweep the strings of melody no

SPONTANEITY.

253

more ; yet their author was a satirist and novel-writer,


never a professed poet. Nor can one read the col
lection made, late in life, by Doyle, another Oxford
professor, of his occasional verse, without thinking
that "The Return of the Guards," "The Old Cava
lier," "The Private of the Buffs," and other soldierly
ballads are the modest effusions of a natural lyrist,
who probably has felt no great encouragement to
perfect a lyrical gift that has been crowded out of
fashion by the manner of the latter-day school.
The success of these unpretentious singers again
illustrates the statement that spontaneity is an essen
tial principle of the art. The poet should carol like
the bird :
" He knows not why nor whence he sings,
Nor whither goes his warbled song ;
As Joy itself delights in joy,
His soul finds strength in its employ,
And grows by utterance strong."
The songs of minstrels in the early heroic ages dis
played the elasticity of national youth. When verses
were recited, not written, a pseudo-poet must have
found few listeners. In a more cultivated stage,
poetry should have all this unconscious freshness, re
fined and harmonized with the thought and finish of
the day.
V.
Many of the novelists have written verse, but Inferior
novelistusually, with the foregoing exceptions, by a profes poets.
sional effort rather than a born gift. The Bronte
sisters began as rhymesters, but quickly found their
true field. Mrs. Craik has composed tender stanzas

254

NO VELIST-POE TS.
resembling those of Miss Procter, and mostly of a
grave and pleasing kind. George Eliot's metrical
work has special interest, coming from a woman ac
knowledged to be, in her realistic yet imaginative
prose, at the head of living female writers. She has
brought all her energies to bear, first upon the con
struction of a drama, which was only a sucres d' estime,
and recently upon a new volume containing "The
Legend of Jubal " and other poems. The result
shows plainly that Mrs. Lewes, though possessed of
great intellect and sensibility, is not, in respect to
metrical expression, a poet. Nor has she a full con
ception of the simple strength and melody of English
verse, her polysyllabic language, noticeable in the
moralizing passages of Middlemarch, being very in
effective in her poems. That wealth of thought which
atones for all her deficiencies in prose does not seem
to be at her command in poetry. The Spanish Gypsy
reads like a second-rate production of the Byronic
school. " The Legend of Jubal " and " How Lisa
loved the King " suffer by comparison with the
narrative poems, in rhymed pentameter, of Morris,
Longfellow, or Stoddard. A little poem in blankverse, entitled " O may I join the choir invisible ! "
and setting forth her conception of the "religion of
humanity," is worth all the rest of her poetry, for it
is the outburst of an exalted soul, foregoing personal
immortality and compensated by a vision of the
growth and happiness of the human race.
Bulwer was another novelist-poet, and one of the
most persistent. During middle age he renewed the
efforts made in his youth to obtain for his metrical
writings a recognition always accorded to his ingenious
and varied prose-romance ; but whatever he did in

BULWER, AND THE MAGAZINISTS.


verse was the result of deliberate intellect and culture.
The fire was not in him, and his measures do not
give out heat and light. His shorter lyrics never
have the true ring ; his translations are somewhat
rough and pedantic ; his satires were often in poor
taste, and brought him no great profit; his serio
comic legendary poem of King Arthur is a monument
to industry, but never was labor more hopelessly
thrown away.
In dramas like " Richelieu " and
"Cromwell" he was more successful; they contain pas
sages which are wise, eloquent, and effective, though
rarely giving out the subtile aroma which comes from
the essential poetic principle. Yet Bulwer had an
honest love for the beautiful and sublime, and his
futile effort to express it was almost pathetic.
Many of his odes and translations were contributed,
I think, to Blackwood's magazine. This suggests men
tion of the ephemeral groups of lyrists that gathered
about the serials of his time. Among the Blackwood
writers, Moir, Aird, a Scotsman of some imagina
tion and fervor, Simmons, and a few greater or lesser
lights, are still remembered. Bentley's was the mouth
piece of a rollicking set of pedantic and witty rhyme
sters, from whose diversions a book of comic ballads
has been compiled. Preiser's, The Dublin University,
and other magazines, attracted each its own staff of
verse-makers, besides receiving the frequent assistance
of poets of wide repute. I may say that throughout
the period much creditable verse has been produced by
studious men who have given poetry the second place
as a vocation. Among recent productions of this
class the historical drama of Hannibal, by Professor
Nichol, of Glasgow, may be taken as a type and a
fair example.

255

256

IVA DE. DOME TT.

Diffusion of With respect to poetry, as to prose, the coarser and


inferior
less discriminating appetite is the more widely dif
fused. Create a popular taste for reading, and an
inferior article comes to satisfy it, by the law of sup
ply and demand. Hence the enormous circulation of
didactic artificial measures, adjusted to the moral and
intellectual levels of commonplace, like those of Hervey, Tupper, and Robert Montgomery : while other
poets of the early and middle divisions, who had
sparks of genius in them, but who could not adapt
themselves to either the select or popular markets of
their time, found the struggle too hard for them, and
have passed out of general sight and mind. At the
very beginning of the period Wade gave promise of
something fine. A copy of his Mundi et Cordis lies
before me, dated 1835. It 's marked with the extrava
gance and turgidity which soon after broke out among
the rhapsodists, yet shows plainly the sensitiveness
and passion of the poet. The contents are in sym
pathy with, and like, the early work of Shelley, and
various poems are of a democratic, liberal stripe, in
spired by the struggle then commencing over Europe.
As long ago as 1837 Domett was contributing lyrics
to Blackwood which justly won the favor of the burly
editor. From a young poet who could throw off a
glee like " Hence, rude Winter, crabbed old fellow ! "
or " All who 've known each other long," his friends
had a right to expect a brilliant future. But he was
an insatiable wanderer, and could " not rest from
travel." His productions dated from every portion
of the globe ; finally he disappeared altogether, and
ceased to be heard from, but his memory was kept
green by Browning's nervous characterization of him,
" What 's become of Waring ? " After three dec

SCOTT. MRS. ADAMS.


ades the question is answered, and our vagrant bard
returns from Australia with a long South Sea idyl,
Hanoi/ and Amohia, a poem justly praised by Brown
ing for varied beauty and power, but charged with
the diffuseness, transcendentalism, defects of art and
action, that were current among Domett's radical breth
ren so many years ago. The world has gone by him.
The lyrics of his youth, and chiefly a beautiful "Christ
mas Hymn," are, after all, the best fruits, as they were
the first, of his long and restless life. But doubtless
the life itself has been a full compensation. There
also was Scott, who wrote The Year of the World, a
poem commended by our Concord Brahmin for its
faithful utilization of the Hindoo mythology. The
author, a distinguished painter and critic, is now one
of the highest authorities upon matters pertaining to
the arts of design.1 There were women too : among
them, Mrs. Adams, author of remembered hymns,
and of that forgotten drama of Vivia Perpetua, a
creature whose beauty and enthusiasm drew around
her the flower of the liberal party ; the friend of Hunt
and Carlyle and W. J. Fox, and of Browning in his
eager youth. Of many such as these, in whom the
lyrical aspiration was checked by too profuse admix
ture with a passion for affairs, for active life, for arts
of design, or for some ardent cause to which they be
came devoted, or who failed, through extreme sensibil
ity, to be calm among the turbid elements about them,
of such it may be asked, where are they and their
1 Mr. Scott has now published his miscellaneous ballads, stud
ies from nature, etc., many of them written years ago, in a
volume to which his own etchings, and those of Alma Tadema,
give additional beauty.

257

Thirty-Jive
years later.

William
Bell Scott:
1811-

Sarah
Flower
A dams :
1805-48.

LOVER. ALLINGHAM.
productions, except in the tender memory and honor
of their early comrades and friends ? Poetry is a jeal
ous mistress : she demands life, worship, tact, the
devotion of our highest faculties ; and he who refuses
all of this and more never can be, first, and above
his other attributes, an eminent or in any sense a
true and consecrated poet.

VI.
We come to a brood of minstrels scattered numer
ously as birds over the meadows of England, the ryefields of Scotland, and the green Irish hills. They are
of a kind which in any active poetic era it is a pleas
ure to regard. They make no claims to eminence.
Their work, however, though it may be faulty and
uneven, has the charm of freshness, and comes from
the heart. The common people must have songs ;
and the children of a generation that had found
pleasure in the lyrics of Moore and Haynes Bayley
have not been without their simple warblers. One
of the most lovable and natural has but lately passed
away ; Lover, a versatile artist, blitheful humorist and
poet. In writing of Barry Cornwall I have referred
to the essential nature of the song, as distinguished
from that of the lyric, and in Lover's melodies the
former is to be found. The office of such men is to
give pleasure in the household, and even if they are
not long to be held of account (though no one can
safely predict how this shall be), they gain a prompt
reward in the affection of their living countrymen.
We find spontaneity, also, in the rhymes of Ailingham, whose " Mary Donnelly " and " The Fairies "
have that intuitive grace called quality, a grace

OTHER SONG-WRITERS.
which no amount of artifice can ever hope to pro
duce, and for whose absence mere talent can never
compensate us. The ballads of Miss Downing, Waller,
and MacCarthy, all have displayed traces of the same
charm ; the last-named lyrist, a man of much culture
and literary ability, has produced still more attractive
work of another kind. Bennett, within his bounds, is
a true poet, who not only has composed many lovely
songs, but has been successful in more thoughtful
efforts. A few of his poems upon infancy and child
hood are sweetly and simply turned. Dr. Mackay, in
the course of a long and prolific career, has furnished
many good songs. Some of his studied productions
have merit, but his proper gift is confined to lyrical
work. Among the remaining Scottish and English
song-makers, Eliza Cook, the Howitts, Gilfillan, and
Swain probably have had the widest recognition ; all
have been simple, and often homely, warblers, having
their use in fostering the tender piety of household
life. Miller, a mild and amiable poet, resembling the
Howitts in his love for nature, wrote correct and
quiet verse thirty years ago, and was more noticeable
for his rural and descriptive measures than for a few
conventional songs.
It will be observed that, as in earlier years, the
most characteristic and impressive songs are of Irish
and Scottish production ; and, indeed, lyrical genius
is a special gift of the warm-hearted, impulsive Celtic
race. Nations die singing, and Ireland has been a
land of song, of melodies suggested by the political
distress of a beautiful and unfortunate country, by the
poverty that has enforced emigration and brought
pathos to every family, and by the traditional loves,
hates, fears, that are a second nature to the humble

259
Mary
DowningI
1830yohn Fran
cis IValler:
AnaDenis
Florence
MacCarthy:
1817-80.
William
Cox Ben
nett: 1820Charles
Mackay :
1814ElizaCook:
1817WiUiam
Howitt :
1795- 1879.
Mary HowM: 1798Robert
Gilfillan :
1798- 1850.
Charles
Swain :
1803-74.
Thomas
Miller:
1809-74.
Irish and
Scottish
songs.
Patriotic
ballads.

IRISH MINSTRELSY.
peasant. All Irish art is faulty and irregular, but
often its faults are endearing, and in its discords
there is sweet sound. That was a significant chorus
which broke out during the prosperous times of The
Nation, thirty years ago, and there was more than
one tuneful voice among the patriotic contributors to
the Dublin newspaper press. Griffin and Banim, novel
ists and poets, flourished at a somewhat earlier date,
and did much to revive the Irish poetical spirit.
Read Banim's " Soggarth Aroon " ; in fact, examine
the mass of poetry, old and recent, collected in Hayes'
" Ballads," with all its poverty and riches, and, amid
a great amount of rubbish, we find many genuine
folk-songs, brimming with emotion and natural poetic
fire. Certain ballads of Lady Dufferin, and such a
lyric as McGee's "Irish Wife," are not speedily for
gotten. Among the most prominent of the songmakers were the group to which I have referred,
Ingram, Davis, Duffy, Keegan, McGee, Linton (the
English liberal), Mrs. Varian, Lady Wilde, and others,
not forgetting Mangan, in some respects the most origi
nal of all. These political rhymers truthfully repre
sented the popular feeling of their own day. Their
songs and ballads will be the study of some future
Macaulay, and are of the kind that both makes and
illustrates national history. Their object was not art ;
some of their rhymes are poor indeed ; but they fairly
belong to that class of which Fletcher of Saltoun
wrote : "If a man were permitted to make all the
ballads, he need not care who should make the laws
of a nation."
Here, too, we may say a word of a contemporary
tribe of English democratic poets, many of them
springing from the people, who kept up such an ala

CHARTIST VERSE.
rum during the Chartist agitation. After Thom, the
" Inverury poet," who mostly confined himself to dia
lect and genre verses, and young Nicoll, who, at the
beginning of our period strayed from Scotland down
to Leeds, and poured out stirring liberal lyrics during
the few months left to him, after these we come to
the bards of Chartism itself. This movement lasted
from 1836 to 1850, and had a distinct school of its
own. There was Cooper, known as "the Chartist
poet." Linton, afterward to become so eminent as
an artist and engraver, was equally prolific and more
poetical, a born reformer, who relieved his eager
spirit by incessant poetizing over the pseudonym of
" Spartacus," and of whom I shall have occasion to
speak again. Ebenezer Jones was another Chartist
rhymester, but also composed erotic verse ; a man of
considerable talent, who died young. These men and
their associates were greatly in earnest as agitators,
and often to the injury of their position as artists
and poets.

261
William
Thorn:
799-1850.
Robert
Nicoll:
1814-37.
Chartism.
Thomas
Cooper :
1805-

" Spartacus."
Ebenezer
Jones :
1820-60.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.
FEW of the minor poets belonging to the middle
division of our period have been of the healthy
and independent cast of Kingsley, Thackeray, Thornbury, or Aytoun. Some have servilely followed the
vocal leaders, or even imitated one another, the law
of imitation involving a lack of judgment, and caus
ing them to copy the heresies, rather than the virtues
of their favorites ; and we are compelled to observe
the devices by which they have striven, often uncon
sciously, to resist adverse influences or to hide the
poverty of their own invention.

I.
The Chartist or radical poets, of whom we have
just spoken, were the forerunners of a more artistic
group whose outpourings the wits speedily character
ized by the epithet " spasmodic." Their work con
stantly affords examples of the knack of substitution.
Mention of Aytoun reminds us that he did good ser
vice, through his racy burlesque, Firmilian, in turning
the laugh upon the pseudo-earnestness of this rhap
sodical school. Its adherents, lacking perception and
synthesis, and mistaking the materials of poetry for

263

THE RHAPSODISTS.
poetry itself, aimed at the production of quotable
passages, and crammed their verse with mixed and
conceited imagery, gushing diction, interjections, and
that mockery of passion which is but surface-deep.
Bailey was one of the most notable of this group,
and from his earliest production may be termed the
founder of the order. Festus certainly made an im
pression upon a host of readers, and is not without
inchoate elements of power. The poet exhausted
himself by this one effort, his later productions want
ing even the semblance of force which marked it and
established the new emotional school. The poets that
took the contagion were mostly very young. Alex
ander Smith years afterward seized Bailey's mantle,
and flaunted it bravely for a while, gaining by A
Life-Drama as sudden and extensive a reputation as
that of his master. This poet wrote of

Philip
James
Bailey :
1816-

A lexander
Smith :
1830-67.

" A Poem round and perfect as a star,"


but the work from which the line is taken is not of
that sort. With much impressiveness of imagery and
extravagant diction that caught the easily, but not
long, tricked public ear, it was vicious in style, loose
in thought, and devoid of real vigor or beauty. In
after years, through honest study, Smith acquired bet
ter taste and worked after a more becoming purpose.
His prose essays were charming, and his City Poems,
marked by sins of omission only, may be rated as
negatively good. " Glasgow " and " The Night before
the Wedding " really are excellent. The poet became
a genuine man of letters, but died young, and when
he was doing his best work. Massey, another emo Gerald
.
tional versifier, came on (like Ernest Jones, who Massey
1828went out more speedily) in the wake of the Chartist

264

BAILE Y. SMITH. MA SSE Y. MA CDONALD.


movement, to which its old supporters vainly sought
to give new life with the hopes aroused by the con
tinental revolutions of 1848. He made his sensation
by cheap rhetoric, and the substitution of sentiment
for feeling, in an otherwise laudable championship of
the working-classes from which he sprang. Sympathy
for his cause gained his social verses a wide hearing ;
but his voice sounds to better advantage in his songs
of wedded love and other fireside lyrics, which often
are earnest and sweet. He also has written an un
usually good ballad, " Sir Richard Grenville's Last
Fight."
The latest of the transcendental poets is Macdonald, who none the less has great abilities as a preacher
and novelist, and in various literary efforts has shown
himself possessed of deep emotion and a fertile, deli
cate fancy. Some of his realistic, semi-religious tales
of Scottish life are admirable. " Light," an ode, is
imaginative and eloquent, but not well sustained, and
his poetry too often, when not commonplace, is vague,
effeminate, or otherwise poor. Is it defective vision,
or the irresistible tendency of race, that inclines even
the most imaginative North Country writers to what is
termed mysticism ? A " Celtic glamour " is veiling the
muse of Buchanan, of whom I shall write more fully
hereafter, so that she is in danger of confusing her
self with the forgotten phantoms of the spasmodic
school. The touching story and writings of poor
Gray who lived just long enough to sing his own
dirges, and died with all his music in him reveal
a sensitive temperament unsustained by co-ordinate
power. Possibly we should more justly say that his
powers were undeveloped, for I do not wholly agree
with those who deny that he had genius, and who

DAVID GRAY.

265

think his work devoid of true promise. The limitless


conceit involved in his estimate of himself was only
what is secretly cherished by many a bantling poet,
who is not driven to confess it by the horror of im
pending death. His main performance, " The Luggie,"
shows a poverty due to the want of proper literary
models in his stinted cottage home. It is an eigh
teenth-century poem, suggested by too close reading
of Thomson and the like. Education, as compared
with aspiration, comes slowly to low-born poets. The
sonnets entitled " In the Shadows," written during the
gradual progress of Gray's disease, are far more poet
ical, because a more genuine expression of feeling.
They are indeed a painful study. Here is a subjec
tive monody, uttered from the depths, but rounded
off with that artistic instinct which haunts a poet to
the last. The self-pity, struggle, self-discipline, and
final resignation are inexpressibly sorrowful and tragic.
Gray had the making of a poet in him, and suffered
all the agonies of an exquisite nature contemplating
the swift and surely coming doom.

II.
After the death of Wordsworth the influence of
Tennyson and that of Browning had more effect upon
the abundant offerings of the minor poets. In the
work of many we discover the elaboration and finesse
of an art-method superadded by the present Laureate
to the contemplative philosophy of his predecessor ;
while not a few, impressed by Browning's dramatic
studies, assume an abrupt and picturesque manner,
and hunt for grotesque and mediaeval themes. Often
the former class substitute a commonplace realism
12

influence of
Z^dBmam-

False si'mi,ltciiy-

266

INFLUENCE OF TENNYSON AND BROWNING.

for the simplicity of Tennyson's English idyls, just


as the latest aspirants, trying to cope with the PreRaphaelite leaders, whose work is elevated by genius,
carry the treatment beyond conscientiousness into
sectarianism, and divide the surface of Nature from
her perspective, laying hold upon her body, yet evaded
Balzac on by her soul. Balzac makes a teacher say to his pupil:
ike true mis
sion ofArt. " The mission of Art is not to copy Nature, but to
express her. You are not a vile copyist, but a poet !
Take a cast from the hand of your mistress ; place
it before you ; you will find it a horrible corpse with
out any resemblance, and you will be forced to resort
to the chisel of an artist, who, without exactly copy
ing it, will give you its movement and its life. We
have to seize the spirit, the soul, the expression, of
beings and things." Many of Blake's aphorisms ex
press the same idea. " Practice and opportunity,"
he said, " very soon teach the language of art. Its
spirit and poetry, centred in the imagination alone,
never can be taught ; and these make the artist
Men think they can copy Nature as correctly as I
copy the imagination. This they will find impossible.
. . . Nature and Fancy are two things, and never
can be joined ; neither ought any one to attempt it,
for it is idolatry, and destroys the soul."
Coventry Patmore, not fully comprehending these
truths, has made verses in which, despite a few
lovely and attractive passages, the simplicity is af
fected and the realism too bald. A carpet-knight in
poetry, as the younger Trollope latterly is in prose,
he merely photographs life, and often in its poor and
commonplace forms. He thus falls short of that aris
tocracy of art which by instinct selects an elevated
theme. It is better to beautify life, though by an

PA TMORE. DOBELL. L YTTON.

267

illusive reflection in a Claude Lorraine mirror, than


to repeat its every wrinkle in a sixpenny lookingglass, after the fashion of such lines as these :
" Restless, and sick of long exile
From those sweet friends, I rode to see
The church repairs ; and, after a while,
Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.
They introduced the Cousin Fred
I 'd heard of, Honor's favorite : grave,
Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,
And with an air of the salt wave.
He stared, and gave his hand, and I
Stared too," etc.
This is not the simplicity of Wordsworth in his better
moods, nor of the true idyllists, nor of him who was
the simplest of all poets, yet the kingliest in manner
and theme.
poetic
modic
Sydney
and
disposition,
Dobell,
realistic amodes,
hadman
theand
offaults
an
these
eccentric
of were
both aggravated
the
yet spasvery s>4*v
1824- 74.

by a desire to maintain a separate position of his


own. His notes were pitched on a strident key,
piping shrill and harsh through all the clamor of his
fellow-bards. " Balder " is the very type of a spas
modic drama. " The Roman " is a healthier, though
earlier, production, at least devoid of egotism and
gush. His lyrics constantly strive for effect. In
" How 's My Boy ? " and " Tommy 's Dead," he struck
pathetic, natural chords, but more often his measures
and inversions were disagreeably strange, while his
sentiment
Meredith,"
" The Wanderer,"
was
what
tame" shall
Clytemnestra,"
and his
be action
said of
and
slighted.
the
" The
author
" Apple
Owen
of fmf&si'
Robert,

of Life " ?

Certainly not that " Chronicles and Char-

268

THE TWO BULWERS.


acters," " Orval," and others of his maturer poems
are an advance upon these early lyrics which so
pleased young readers half a generation ago. They
are not open to criticism that will apply to " The
Wanderer," etc., but incur the severer charge of dulness which must preclude them from the welcome
given to his first books. " Lucile," with all its light
ness, remains his best poem, as well as the most
popular: a really interesting, though sentimental, par
lor-novel, written in fluent verse, a kind of pro
duction exactly suited to his gift and limitations.
It is quite original, for Lytton adds to an inherited
talent for melodramatic tale-writing a poetical ear, good
knowledge of effect, and a taste for social excitements.
His society-poems, with their sensuousness and af
fected cynicism, present a later aspect of the quality
that commended Ernest Maltravers and Pelham to
the young people of a former day. Some of his
early lyrics are tender, warm, and beautiful ; but
more are filled with hot-house passion, with the ra
diance, not of stars, but of chandeliers and gas-lights.
The Bulwers always have been a puzzle. Their cul
tured talent and cleverness in many departments have
rivalled the genius of other men. We admire their
glittering and elaborate structures, though aware of
something hollow or stuccoed in the walls, columns,
and ceilings, and even suspicious of the floor on
which we stand. Father and son, their love of
letters, determination, indomitable industry, have com
manded praise. The son, writing in poetry as nat
urally as his father wrote in prose, has the same
adroitness, the same unbounded ambition, the same
conscientiousness in labor and lack of it in method.
In his metaphysical moods we see a reflection of the

MINOR IDYLLIC SCHOOL.

269

clearer Tennysonian thought ; and, indeed, while in


teresting and amusing us, he always was something
of an imitator. His lyrics were like Browning's
dramatic stanzas ; his blank-verse appropriated the
breaks and cadences of Tennyson, and ventured on
subjects which the Laureate was long known to have
in hand. The better passages of " Clytemnestra "
were taken almost literally from ^Eschylus. Those
versed in Oriental poetry have alleged that his wan
derings upon its borders are mere forays in " fresh
woods and pastures new." His voluminous later
works, in which every style of poetry is essayed, cer
tainly have not fulfilled the promise of his youth,
and those friends are disappointed who once looked
to him for signs of a new poetical dawn.

III.
The merits and weakness of the idyllic method, as Minor idyl
compared with that of a time when a high lyric or lic poets.
epic feeling has prevailed, can best be studied in the
productions of the Laureate's followers, rather than
in his own verse ; for the latter, whatever the method,
would derive from his intellectual genius a glory and
a charm. The idyl is a picturesque, rather than an The idyt
imaginative, form of art, and calls for no great amount
of invention or passion. It invariably has the method
of a busy, anxious age, seeking rest rather than ex
citement. Through restrained emotion, music, and
picturesque simplicity it pleases, but seems to betoken
absence of creative power. The minor idyllists hunt
for themes, they do not write because their themes
compel them ; they construct poems as still-life artists
paint their pictures, becoming thorough workmen, but

270

F. TENNYSON. WOOLNER. LINTON.


at last we yearn for some swift heroic composition
whose very faults are qualities, and whose inspiration
fills the maker's soul.
Frederick Tennyson, for example, treats outdoor
nature with painstaking and curious discernment, re
peating every shadow ; but the result is a pleasantly
illustrated catalogue of scenic details. It is nature
refined by a tasteful landscape-gardener. Few late
poets, however, have shown more elegance in versestructure and rhythm. An artistic motive runs through
his poems, all of which are carefully finished and not
marred by the acrobatism of the rhapsodic school.
Turner, another of the Tennyson brothers, was the
least modern of them in his cast. His sonnets do not
conform to either the Italian or English requirements,
but have some poetical value. Edwin Arnold's verse
is that of a scholarly gentleman. The books of Roden
Noel may pass without comment. My Beautiful Lady,
by Woolner, is a true product of the art-school, with
just that tinge of gentle affectation which the name
implies. It has a distinct motive, to commemorate
the growth, maintenance, and final strengthening by
death, of a pure and sacred love, and is a votive
tribute to its theme : a delicate volume of such verse
as could have been produced in no other time. Lin
ton's Claribel and Other Poems, 1865, distinctly belongs
to the same school, and is noteworthy as an early
specimen of a method frequently imitated by the latest
poets. At the date of its appearance this pretty vol
ume was almost unique, the twofold work of the
author, as artist and poet, and dedicated to William
Bell Scott, a man of sympathetic views and associa
tions. We have seen that Linton's early writings were
devoted to liberal and radical propagandism. The

WESTWOOD. MEREDITH. ASHE.


volume before me is a collection of more finished
poetry, imbued with an artistic purpose, and with
beauty of execution and design. Few men have so
much individuality as its author, or are more versatile
in acquirements and adventure. He is a famous en
graver, and his work as a draughtsman and painter
is full of meaning. These gifts are used to heighten
the effect of his songs ; fanciful and poetical designs
are scattered along the pages of this book; nor can
it be said that such aids are meretricious, in these
latter days, when poetry is addressed not only to the
ear but also to the eye. Some of the verse requires
no pictures to sustain it. A " Threnody " in memory
of Albert Darasz is an addition to the few good and
imaginative English elegiac poems ; and it may be
said of whatever Linton does, that, if sometimes ec
centric, it shows a decisive purpose and a love of art
for its own sake. Westwood's "The Quest of the Sancj
greall" marks him for one of Tennyson's pupils. His
minor lyrics are more pleasing. All these poets turn
at will from one method to another, and may be
classed as of the composite school. Meredith's verse
is a further illustration ; he is dramatic and realistic,
but occasionally ventures upon a classical or romantic
study. He often fails of his purpose, though usually
having one. The Poems of the English Roadside seem
\o me his most original work, and of them "Juggling
Jerry" is the best. Ashe is one of those minor
poets who catch and reflect the prevailing mode : he
belongs to the chorus, and is not an independent
singer. His Poems, 1859, are mildly classical and
idyllic; but in 1867 he gave us The Sorrows of Hypsipyle, after Atalanta in Calydon had revived an in
terest in dramatic poetry modelled upon the antique.

271

Thomas
Westwood:
1814-

George
Meredith :
1828-

Thomas
Ashe: 1836

272

'vers de soc'iSre:

IV.
Of those patrician rhymes which, for want of an
English equivalent, are termed vers de socikte, the gentle
Praed, who died at the commencement of the period,
was an elegant composer. In verse under this head
may also be included, for the occasion, epigrammatic
couplets, witty and satirical songs, and all that metrical
badinage which is to other poetry what the feuilleton
is to prose. During the first half of our retrospect it
was practised chiefly by scholarly and fluent wits. In
the form of satire and parody it was cleverly employed,
we have seen, by Aytoun, in his " spasmodic tragedy "
of " Firmilian " ; merrily, too, by Aytoun and Martin
in the Bon Gualtier ballads ; by Thackeray in " LoveSongs made Easy," "Lyra Hibernica," the ballads of
" Pleaceman X.," etc. ; by Hood in an interminable
string of mirth and nonsense ; and with mock-heroic
scholarship by the undaunted Irish wit, poet, and Latinist, " Father Prout," and the whole jovial cohort
that succeeded to the foregoing worthies in the pages
of the monthly magazines. But with the restrained
manners of the present time, and the finish to which
everything is subjected, we have a revival of the more
select order of society-verse. This is marked by an
indefinable aroma which elevates it to the region of
poetic art, and owing to which, as to the imperishable
essence of a subtile perfume, the lightest ballads of
Suckling and Waller are current to this day. In fine,
Qualities of true vers de sociHk is marked by humor, by spontane
good societyity, joined with extreme elegance of finish, by the
quality we call breeding, above all, by lightness of
touch. Its composer holds a place in the Parnassian
hemicycle as legitimate as that of Robin Goodfellow

MAHONE Y. LOCKER. CAL VERLE Y. DOBSON.

273

12*
R
in Oberon's court.
The dainty lyrics of Locker
not
unfrequently display these characteristics : he is not
strikingly original, but at times reminds us of Praed
or of Thackeray, and again, in such verses as "To
my Grandmother," of an American, Dr. Holmes.
But his verse is light, sweet, graceful, gayly wise, and
sometimes pathetic. Calverley and Dobson are the
best of the new farceurs. Fly-Leaves, by the former,
contains several burlesques and serio-comic transla
tions that are excellent in their way, with most agree
able qualities of fancy and thought. Dobson's Vign
ettes in Rhyme has one or two lyrics, besides lighter
pieces equal to the best of Calverley's, which show
their author to be not only a gentleman and a scholar,
but a most graceful poet, titles that used to be
associated in the thought of courtly and debonair
wits. Such a poet, to hold the hearts he has won,
not only must maintain his quality, but strive to vary
his style ; because, while there is no work, brightly and
originally done, which secures a welcome so instant as
that accorded to his charming verse, there is none to
which the public ear becomes so quickly wonted, and
none from which the world so lightly turns upon the
arrival of a new favorite with a different note.

Frederick
LockerLampson .
1821-

Society-verse, then, has been another symptom of


cultured and refined periods, of the times of Horace,
Catullus, Theocritus, Waller, Pope, Voltaire, Tenny
son, and Thackeray. The intense mental activity of
our own era is still more clearly evinced by the
great number of recent English versions of the poetic
masterpieces of other tongues. Oxford and Cam
bridge have filled Great Britain with scholars, some
of whom, acquiring rhythmical aptness, have produced

Other tokens
ofa refined
and schol
arly period.

Charles
Stuart
Calverley :
831-84.
Austin Dobson: 1840-

Recent
translators,
and the new
theory of
translation.

274

THE TRANSLATORS.
good work of this kind. Modern translations differ
noticeably, in their scholastic accuracy, from those of
earlier date, among which Chapman's are the no
blest, Pope's the freest, and those by Hunt, Shelley,
and Frere scarcely inferior to the best. The theory
of translation has undergone a change ; the old idea
having been that as long as the spirit of a foreign au
thor was reproduced an exact rendering need not be
attempted. But to how few it is given to catch that
spirit, and hence what wretched versions have ap
peared from time to time ! Only natural poets worked
successfully upon the earlier plan.
The modern
school possibly go too near the extreme of conscien
tiousness, yet a few have found the art of seizing
upon both the spirit and the text. The amount pro
duced is amazing, and has given the public access, in
our own language, to the choicest treasures of almost
every foreign literature, be it old or new.
In the earlier division, Bowring was the most pro
lific, and he has also published several volumes of a
very recent date. His excursions into the fields of
continental literature have had most importance ; but
his versions, however valuable in the absence of bet
ter, rarely display any poetic fire. The elder Lytton
was a fair type of the elegant Latinists and minor
translators belonging to the earlier school. His best
performance was a recent version of Horace, in me
tres resembling, but not copied from, the original,
a translation more faithful than Martin's paraphrases,
but not approaching the latter in elegance. Martin's
Horace has the flavor and polish of Tennyson, and
plainly is modelled upon the Laureate's verse. Of all
classical authors Horace is the Briton's favorite. The
statement of Bulwer's preface is under the truth when

THE TRANSLATORS.
it says: "Paraphrases and translations are still more
numerous than editions and commentaries. There is
scarcely a man of letters who has not at one time or
other versified or imitated some of the odes ; and
scarcely a year passes without a new translation of
them all." Upon Homer, also, the poetic scholars
have expended immense energy, and various theories
as to the proper form of measure have given birth to
several noble versions, distinguished from a multi
tude of no worth. Those of Wright, Worsley, Pro
fessor Newman, Professor Blackie, and Lord Derby
may be pronounced the best ; though admirable bits
have been done by Arnold, Dr. Hawtrey, and the
Laureate. I do not, however, hesitate to say and
believe that few will deny that the ideal translation
of Homer, marked by swiftness, simplicity, and gran
deur, has yet to be made ; nor do I doubt that it
ultimately will be, having already stated that our
Saxon-Norman language is finely adapted to repro
duce the strength and sweetness of the early Ionic
Greek. Professor Conington's Virgil, in the measure
of " Marmion," was no advance, all things considered,
upon Dryden's, nor equal to that of the American,
Cranch. Some of the best modern translations have
been made by women, who, following Mrs. Browning,
mostly affect the Greek. Miss Swanwick and Mrs.
Webster, among others, nearly maintain the standard
of their inspired exemplar. M. P. Fitz-Gerald's ver
sions of Euripides, and of the pastoral and lyric Greek
poets, may be taken as specimens of the general ex
cellence now attained, and I will not omit mention
of Calverley's complete rendition of Theocritus,
undoubtedly as good as can be made by one who
fears to undertake the original metres. Among me-

275

Ichabod
Charles
Wright:
1795-1871Philip
Stanhope
Worsley :
died 1866.
Francis
William
Newman:
1805John Stuart
Blackie :
1809Edward,
Lord
Derby :
1799- 1869.
Rev.
Edward
Craven
Hawtrey :
1789- 186*.
Seepage
John Conington :
1825-69.

Anna
Swanwick.
Augusta
Webster.
Maurice
Purcell
Fitz-Gerald.
Caherley.
Seepage 273

276

THE TRANSLATORS.
diaeval and modern writers Dante and Goethe have
received the most attention; but Longfellow and Tay
lor, in their translations of the Divine Comedy and
of Faust, and Bryant in his stately version of the
Iliad and the Odyssey, bear off die palm for Amer
ica in reproduction of the Greek, Italian, and Ger
man poems. Of Rossetti's exquisite presentation of
the Early Italian Poets, and Morris's Icelandic re
searches, I shall speak elsewhere, and can only make
a passing reference to MacCarthy's extended and beau
tiful selections from Calderon, rendered into English
asonante verse. Martin has made translations from
the Danish, and, together with Aytoun, of the bal
lads of Goethe.
Of modern Oriental explorations,
altogether the best is a version of the grave and
imaginative Jtubdiydt of Omar Khayyam, by E. FitzGerald, who has made other successful translations
from the Persian, as well as from the Spanish and
the Attic Greek.
The foregoing are but a few of the host of transla
tors ; but their labors fairly represent the richness
and excellence of this kind of work in our time,
and are cited as further illustrations of the critical
spirit of an age in which it would almost seem as if
the home-field were exhausted, such researches are
made into the literature of foreign tongues. I again
use the language of those who describe the Alexan
drian period of Greek song : men " of tact and
scholarship greatly abound," and by elegant studies
endeavor to supply the force of nature. Early and
strictly non-creative periods of English literature have
been similarly characterized, notably the century
which included Pitt, Rowe, Cooke, West, and Fawkes
among its scholars and poets.

HYMNOLOGY.
In glancing at the lyrical poetry of the era, its
hymnology should not be overlooked. Religious verse
is one of the most genuine forms of song, inspired
by the loftiest emotion, and rehearsed wherever the
instinct of worship takes outward form. Written for
music, it is lyrical in the original sense, and repre
sentative, even more than the domestic folk-songs,
of our common life and aspiration. We are not sur
prised to find the work of recent British hymn-writers
displaying the chief qualities of contemporary secular
poetry, to wit, finish, tender beauty of sentiment and
expression, metrical variety, and often culture of a
high grade. What their measures lack is the lyrical
fire, vigor, and passionate devotion of the earlier
time. Within their province they reflect the method
of Tennyson, and with all their polish and subtilty
of thought write devotional verse that is somewhat
tame beside the fervid strains of Watts, at his best,
and the beautiful lyrics of the younger Wesley. In
place of strength, exaltation, religious ecstasy, we
have elaborate sweetness, refinement, emotional re
pose. Many hymn-writers of the transition period
have held over to a recent time, such as James
Montgomery, Keble, Lyte, Edmeston, Bowring, Milman, and Moir, and the stanzas of the first-named
two have become an essential portion of English
hymnody. The best results accomplished by recent
devotional poets and this also is an outgrowth of
the new culture have been the profuse and admi
rable translations of the ancient and mediaeval Latin
hymns by the English divines, Chandler, Neale, and
Caswall, the last-named being the deftest workman
of the three, although the others may be credited with
equal poetic glow. Among the most successful origi-

277
Recent hym
nology :

teristics.
Its charac-

The early
and later
composers of
sacredverse.
Watts and
C. Wesley.
Montgom
ery, Keble,
and others.
The trans
lators :
Rev. John
Chandler
{Church of
England) :
1806-76.
Rev. John
Mason
Neale (Rr'tualist): 181866.
Rev.
Edward
Caswall
{Church of
Rome) :
1814-78.
Original
composers :

273

DIALECT VERSE.

Rev. Hora- nal composers Dr. Bonar should be mentioned,


tius Bonar :
1808- (Scot- many of whose hymns are so widely and favorably
lishChurch.) known ; Faber, also, is one of the best and most
Rev. Fred
erick W. Fa- prolific of this class of poets, notable for the sweet
ber: 1814-63 ness and beauty of his sacred lyrics. Others, such
{Church of
as Dr. Newman, Dean Trench, Dean Alford, PalRome.)
Mrs.Adams. grave, and Mrs. Adams, have been named elsewhere.
{Unitarian.)
Seepage 257. I will barely refer, among a host of lesser note, to
Charlotte Miss Elliott, that pure and inspired sibyl, to Dr.
Elliott:
1789-1871. Wordsworth, Dean Stanley, and Baring-Gould. Bick
Rev. Christo ersteth, whose longest poem, like the writings of
pher IVordsTupper, has had a circulation strictly owing to its
wjrth :
1S07-85.
theme and in inverse proportion to its poetic merits,
Rev. A rthur
has composed a few hymns that have passed into
Penrhyn
Stanley:
favor. Excellent service also has been rendered by
1815-81.
Rev. Sabine those who work the German field, and it is notice
Baringable that, while the strongest versions from the Lat
Gould:
in have been made by the divines before named,
1834Rev. Ed the most successful Germanic translators have been
ward Henry
Bickersteth : women. Among them, Miss Winkworth, who in 1855
1825and 1858 published the two series of the Lyra GerHymns
manica
; Miss Cox, editor of Sacred Hymns from the
from the
German,
German,
1841 ; and the Bothwick sisters, whose Hymns
and tlteir
translators. [from the Land of Luther appeared in several series,
Catherine from 1854 to 1862. Massie, translator of Luther's
Winkworth:
Spiritual Songs, 1854, has been the chief competitor
1829-78.
Frances
of
these skilful and enthusiastic devotees. With re
Elizabeth
spect to English hymnody, I may add that probably
Cox.
Jane Both- there never was another period when the sacred
wick: 1813Mrs. Eric lyrics of all ages were so carefully edited, brought
Bothvjick together, and arranged for the use and enjoyment of
Fmdlaler.
the religious world.
Richard
Massie :
1800The success of the dialect-poets is a special mark

SHAIRP. WA UGH. BARNES.


of an idyllic period. The novel and pleasing effect
of the more musical dialects often has been used to
give an interest to mediocre verse ; and close atten
tion is required to discriminate between the true and
the false pretensions of lyrics composed in the Scotch,
that liquid Doric, or even in the rougher phrases of
Lancashire, Dorsetshire, and other counties of Eng
land. Several Scottish bards, of more or less merit,
Thorn, Ballantine, Maclagan, Janet Hamilton, fig
ure in the period. Professor Shairp's highland and
border lyrics, faithful enough and painstaking, scarcely
could be ranked with natural song. In England,
Lancashire maintains her old reputation for the num
ber and sweetness of her provincial songs and ballads.
Waugh is by far the best of her recent dialect-poets.
To say nothing of many other little garlands of poesy
which have their origin in his knowledge of humble
life in that district, the Lancashire Songs have gained
a wide reception by pleasing, truthful studies of
their dialect and themes. Barnes, an idyllic and
learned philologist, has done even better work in his
bucolic poems of Dorsetshire, and his Poems of Rural
Life (in common English) are very attractive. The
minor dialect-verses of England, such as the streetballads and the sea-songs of many a would-be Dibdin,
are unimportant and beyond our present view.

V.
Leaving the specialists, it is observable that the Female
poets.
voices of the female poets, if not the best-trained, cer
tainly are as natural and independent as any. Their
utterance is less finished, but also shows less of Tenny
son's influence, and seems to express a truly feminine

2/9

28o

JEAN INGELOW. CHRISTINA ROSSETTI.


emotion and to come from the heart. As the voice
of Mrs. Browning grew silent, the songs of Miss Ingelow began, and had instant and merited popularity.
They sprung up suddenly and tunefully as skylarks
from the daisy-spangled, hawthorn-bordered meadows
of old England, with a blitheness long unknown, and
in their idyllic underflights moved with the tenderest
currents of human life. Miss Ingelow may be termed
an idyllic lyrist, her lyrical pieces having always much
idyllic beauty, and being more original than her recent
ambitious efforts in blank-verse. Her faults are those
common to her sex, too rapid composition, and a
diffuseness that already has lessened her reputation.
But " The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire "
(with its quaint and true sixteenth-century dialect),
" Winstanley," "Songs of Seven," and "The Long
White Seam," are lyrical treasures, and their author
especially may be said to evince that sincerity which
is poetry's most enduring warrant. The gentle stanzas
of Miss Procter also are spontaneous, as far as they
go, but have had less significance as part of the litera
ture of the time. Yet it is like telling one's beads,
or reading a prayer-book, to turn over her pages,
so beautiful, so pure and unselfish a spirit of faith,
hope, and charity pervades and hallows them. These
women, with their melodious voices, spotless hearts,
and holy aspirations, are priestesses of the oracle.
Their ministry is sacred ; in their presence the most
irreverent become subdued. I do not find in the
lyrics of Mrs. Knox, the Scottish poetess, anything
better than the ode in honor of Burns, which took the
centenary prize. Miss Rossetti demands closer atten
tion. She is a woman of genius, whose songs, hymns,
I ballads, and various lyrical pieces are studied and

NEO-ROMANTIC SCHOOL.
original. I do not greatly admire her longer poems,
which are more fantastic than imaginative ; but else
where she is a poet of a profound and serious cast,
whose lips part with the breathing of a fervid spirit
within. She has no lack of matter to express ; it is
that expression wherein others are so fluent and adroit
which fails to serve her purpose quickly ; but when,
at last, she beats her music out, it has mysterious and
soul-felt meaning. Another woman-poet is Mrs. Web
ster, already mentioned as a translator. For many
poetic qualities this lady's work is nearly equal, in
several departments of verse, to that of the best of
her sister artists ; and I am not sure but her general
level is above them all. She has a dramatic faculty
unusual with women, a versatile range, and much
penetration of thought ; is objective in her dramatic
scenes and longer idyls, which are thinner than Brown
ing's, but less rugged and obscure ; shows great
culture, and is remarkably free from the tricks and
dangerous mannerism of recent verse.

VI.
The minor poetry of the last few years is of a
strangely composite order, vacillating between the art
of Tennyson and the grotesqueness of Browning, while
the latest of all illustrates, in rhythmical quality, the
powerful effect Swinburne's manner already has had
upon the poetic ear. We can see that the long-unpop
ular Browning at length has become a potent force
as the pioneer of a half-dramatic, half-psychological
method, whose adherents seek a change from the idyl
lic repose of the Laureate and his followers. With
this intent, and with a strong leaning toward the art

EVANS. SIMCOX. MARSTON. HAKE.


studies and convictions of the Rossetti group, a NeoRomantic School has arisen, and many of the prom
ising younger aspirants are upon its roll.
Among recent volumes decidedly in the manner of
Browning may be mentioned Brother Fabian's Manu
script ; and OtJur Poems, by Evans. On the other
side, Simcox's Poems and Romances are elaborate and
curious romantic studies, resembling works of this sort
by Morris and Rossetti. P. B. Marston inherits a
poetic gift from his father (Dr. Westland Marston, au
thor of " The Patrician's Daughter " and many other
plays). The son is of the new school. I do not
remember any experimental volume that has shown
more artistic perfection than his Song-Tide and Other
Poems. His sonnets and lyrics approach those of
Rossetti in terseness and beauty, and, while he pos
sesses more restraint than others of his group, there
is extreme feeling, pathetic yearning, and that selfpity which is consolation, in his sonnets of a love
that has been, and is gone, of " the joy that was, is
not, and cannot be." It is said that Marston is
blind, but not from birth ; and certainly his imagina
tion finely supplies the want of outward vision in
these picturesque and deeply emotional poems.
Sometimes, in a garden that has changed owners
and has been replanted with exotics of brilliant and
various hues, the visitor is struck with surprise to see
a sweet and sturdy native flower sprung up of itself,
amid the new-fangled exuberance, from seed dropped
in a season long gone by. It is with a kindred
feeling that we examine Dr. Hake's volume, Made
line, and Other Poems and Parables, so strangely and
pleasantly different from the contemporary mode. It
is filled with quaint, grave, thoughtful measures, that

WARREN. PA YNE.
remind us, by their devotion, of Herbert or Vaughan,
by their radical insight, of the plain-spoken hom
ilies of a time when England's clergymen believed
what they preached, and, by their emblematic and
symbolic imagery, of Francis Quarles. " Old Souls,"
"The Lily of the Valley," and other parables, are
well worth close reading, and possibly are the
selectest portion of this very original writer's verse.
Warren's Philodetes, an antique drama, is a good example of the excellence attained in this kind of work
by the new men. It is close, compact, Grecian, less
rich with poetry and music than " Atalanta," but even
more statuesque and severe. This poet is of the
most cultured type. His Rehearsals is a collection
of verses that generally show the influence of Swin
burne, but include a few psychological studies in a
widely different vein. He is less florid and ornate
than his favorite master ; all of his work is highly
finished, and much of it very effective. Among his
other successes must be reckoned an admirable use
of the stately Persian quatrain./' Payne is a more
open and pronounced disciple of the Neo-Romantic
school. His first book, The Masque of Shadows, is a
collection of mystical " romaunts," containing much
old-fashioned diction, in form reminding us of Morris's j
octo-syllabic measures, but pervaded by an allegorical '
spirit. In his Intaglios we have a series of sonnets
inscribed, like those of Rossetti, to their common
master, Dante. Finally, the volume entitled Songs of
Life and Death shows the influence of Swinburne, so
curious
that his mixture
works, ifand
brought
reflection
together,
of styles.
would Neverthe
present a
less, this young poet has fire, imagination, and other
inborn qualities, and should be entirely competent

283

John
tyarm:
i8"-

joknPayne:
iS*2~

284

O'S/fA UGHNESSY. MARZIALS.


to achieve distinction in a manner plainly original.
His friend O'Shaughnessy, another man who appears
to have the natural faculty, is moving on a parallel
line. Music and Moonlight, his latest volume, is no
advance upon the Lays of France, a highly poetical,
though somewhat extravagant adaptation of the Lais
de Marie, composed in the new manner, but showing,
in style and measure, that the author has a person
ality of his own. The " Lays " resemble the work of
Morris rather than that of Swinburne ; but " Music
and Moonlight," and the author's first venture, An
Epic of Women, are full of the diction and sugges
tions of the last-named poet. When this romancer
becomes lyrical, he is vague and far less pleasing
than in his narrative-verse. He, too, needs to shake
off external influences, and acquire a definite purpose,
before we can attempt to cast his horoscope. Both
Payne and O'Shaughnessy have thus far shown
themselves, by culture and affinity, to be pupils of
the French Romantic school, so elaborate in style
and subtile in allusions, but not really broad or
healthy in manner and design. Its romanticism, as
a new element added to English poetry, is worth
something, and I hope that its beauty will survive
its defects. It is an exotic, but English literature
(like English architecture, sculpture, and music) is so
thickly grafted with exotic scions as to yield little
fruit that comes wholly from the parent stock.
In order to test the new method, let us study it
when carried to an extreme. This is done by Marzials, whose poems are the result of Provencal studies.
In The Gallery of Pigeons, and other Poems, he turns
his back upon a more serene deity, and vows alle
giance to the Muse of Fantasy, or (as he prefers to

THE MUSE OF FANTASY.


write it) " Phantasy." At first sight his volume seems
a burlesque, and certainly would pass for as clever
a satire as " Firmilian." How else can we interpret
such a passage as this, which is neither more nor
less affected than the greater portion of our author's
work ?
" They chase them each, below, above,
Half maddened by their minstrelsy,
Thro' garths of crimson gladioles ;
And, shimmering soft like damoisels,
The angels swarm in glimmering shoals,
And pin them to their aurioles,
And mimick back their ritournels."
The long poem of which this is a specimen is aptly
named "A Conceit." Then we have a pastoral of
" Passionate Dowsabella," and her rival Blowselind.
Again, "A Tragedy," beginning,
The barges "down
Plop.
Deathin! the river flop,"

and ending,
" Dead.
Drop
Plop,
Plop."
flop.
Were this written by a satirist, it would be deemed
the wildest caricature. Read closely, and you see
that this fantastic nonsense is the work of an artist ;
that it has a logical design, and is composed in
serious earnest. Throughout the book there is melo
dy, color, and much fancy of a delicate kind. Here
is a minstrel, with his head turned by a false method,
and in very great danger, I should say. But lyrical
absurdities are so much the fashion just now in Eng-

285

286

RECENT CRITICISM.

Want of
wholesome
criticism.

land, that reviewers seem complacently to accept them.


It is enough to make us forgive the Georgian critics
their brutality, and cry put for an hour of Jeffrey or
Gifford ! To see how these fine fellows plume them
selves ! They intensify the mannerism of their leader,
but do not sustain it by his imagination, fervor, and
tireless poetic growth.
" Scholar's
Every effort is expended upon decoration rather
work in
than
construction, and upon construction rather than
poetry"
invention, by the minor adherents of the romance
school. -In critical notices, which the British pub
lishers are ,wont to print on the fly-leaves of their
books of verse, praise is frequently bestowed upon
the contents as " excellent scholar's work in poetry."
Poetry is treated as an art, not as an inspiration.
See pages Moreover, just as in the Alexandrian period, researches
205, 206.
are made into the early tongue; "antique and quaint
words " are employed ; study endeavors to supply the
force of nature, and too often hampers the genius of
true poets. Renaissance, and not creation, is the aim
and process of the day.

yii.
'/hefore
In the foregoing review of the course of British
going list of
poets selected minor poetry during the present reign I have no,t
to represent tried to be exhaustive, nor to include all the lesser
the mass.
poets of the era. The latter would be a difficult
task, for the time, if not creative, has been abun
dantly prolific. Of modern minstrels, as of a certain
class of heroes, it may be said, that " every year and
month sends forth a new one"; the press groans with
their issues. My effort has been to select from the
large number, whose volumes are within my reach,

ERRORS OF THE MINOR POETS.


such names as represent the various phases consid
ered. Although I have been led insensibly to men
tion more than were embraced in my original design,
doubtless some have been omitted of more repute or
merit than others that have taken their place. But
enough has been said to enable us to frame an an
swer to the questions implied at the outset : The
spirit of later British poetry ; is it fresh and proud
with life, buoyant in hope, and tuneful with the melody
of unwearied song? Again; has the usage of the time
eschewed gilded devices and meretricious effect? Is
it essentially simple, creative, noble, and enduring?
Certainly, with respect to what has been written by
poets of the meditative school, the former question
cannot be answered in the affirmative. With much
simplicity and composure of manner, they have been
tame, perplexed, and more or less despondent. The
second test, applied to those guided by Tennyson,
Browning, and Swinburne, and who have more or
less succeeded in catching the manner of these greater
poets, is one which their productions fail to un
dergo successfully. It may be said that the charac
teristics of the early Victorian schools distinguished
from those of famous poetic epochs have been
reflective, sombre, metaphysical, rather than fruitful,
spontaneous, and joyously inspired ; while those of
the later section are more related to culture and ele
gant artifice, than to the interpretation of nature or
the artistic presentation of essential truth. The minor
idyllists, romancers, and dramatic lyrists have pos
sessed much excellence of expression, but do not
subordinate this to what is to be expressed. They
laboriously, therefore, hunt for themes, and in various
ways endeavor to compromise the want of virile imagi-

Questions
origituilly
suggested.

Tone ofthe
minor philo
sophic poets.

The idyllists, ro
mancers,
and others.

288

THE TRUE FUNCTION OF ART.


nation. Ruskin, who always has made an outcry against
this frigid, perverted taste, established a correct rule
in the first volume of Modern Painters, applying it to
either of the fine arts : " Art," he said, " with all its
technicalities, difficulties, and particular ends, is noth
ing but a noble and expressive language, invaluable
as the vehicle of thought, but by itself nothing
Rhythm, melody, precision, and force are, in the words
of the orator and poet, necessary to their greatness,
but not the tests of their greatness. It is not by the
mode of representing and saying, but by what is
represented and said, that the respective greatness
either of the painter or writer is to be finally deter
mined
It is not, however, always easy, either
in painting or literature, to determine where the in
fluence of language stops and where that of thought
begins
But the highest thoughts are those
which are least dependent on language, and the dig
nity of any composition and the praise to which it is
entitled are in exact proportion to its independency
of language or expression." Ruskin's own rhetorical
gifts are so eminent, formerly leading him into wordpainting for their display, that he pronounces deci
sively on this point, as one who does penance for a
besetting fault. He might have added that the high
est thought naturally finds a noble vehicle of expres
sion, though the latter does not always include the
former. To a certain extent he implies this, in his
statement of a difference (which frequently confronts
the reader of these late English poets) between what
is ornamental in language and what is expressive :
this distinction " is peculiarly necessary in painting ;
for in the language of words it is nearly impossible
for that which is not expressive to be beautiful, ex

CONSTRUCTION AND DECORATION.


cept by mere rhythm or melody, any sacrifice to which
is immediately stigmatized as error." Upon this point
Arnold well calls attention to Goethe's statement that
" what distinguishes the artist from the amateur is
architectonike in the highest sense ; that power of ex
ecution which creates, forms, and constitutes : not the
profoundness of single thoughts, not the richness of
imagery, not the abundance of illustration."
The rule of architecture may safely be applied to
poetry, that construction must be decorated, not dec
oration constructed. The reverse of this is practised
by many of these writers, who are abundantly supplied
with poetical material, with images, quaint words, con
ceits, and dainty rhymes and alliteration, and who
laboriously seek for themes to constitute the ground
work over which these allurements can be displayed.
Having not even a definite purpose, to say nothing
of real inspiration, their work, however curious in
technique, fails to permanently impress even the
refined reader, and never reaches the heart of the
people, to which all emotional art is in the end
addressed. Far more genuine, as poetry, is the rude
spontaneous lyric of a natural bard, expressing the
love, or patriotism, or ardor, to which the common
pulse of man beats time. The latter outlasts the
former ; the former, however acceptable for a while,
inevitably passes out of fashion, being but a fashion,
and is sure to repel the taste of those who, in an
other age, may admire some equally false production
that has come in vogue.
Judged by the severe rule which requires soul,
matter, and expression, all combined, does the char
acter of recent minor poetry of itself give us cause
to expect a speedy renewal of the imaginative periods
13
"
s

289

290
British and
A merican
minorpoets
contrasted.
Cp. " Poets
ofAmer
ica " .. p.
456.

ENGLAND AND AMERICA.

of British song ? To apply another test which is like


holding a mirror up to a drawing, suppose that the
younger American singers were wholly devoted to
work of the scholastic dilettant sort, would not their
poetry be subjected to still more neglect and contu
mely than it has received from English critics ? On
the whole, our poets do not occupy themselves with
mediaeval and classical studies, with elaborate alliter
ations, curious measures, and affected refrains. Yet
they have a perfect right to do this, or, at least,
every right that an English poet possesses, under the
canon that the domain of the artist is boundless, and
that the historic themes and treasures of all ages and
places are at his disposal. America has no tradi
tional period, except her memories of the mother
land. She has as much right to British history, ante
dating Queen Anne's time, as the modern British
poet. Before that epoch, her history, laws, relations,
all were English, and her books were printed across
the sea. The story of Mary Stuart, for instance, is
as proper a theme for an American as for the author
Freshness of Bothwell. Yet even our most eminent poets do
BStd individ
uality ofthe not greatly avail themselves of this usufruct, and the
latter.
minor songsters, who are many and sweet, sing to ex
press some emotion aroused by natural landscape,
patriotism, friendship, religion, or love. There is
much originality among those whose note is harsh,
and much sweetness among those who repeat the
note of others. And the notes of what foreign bard
do they repeat with a servility that merits the epithet
See Chap. of " mocking-birds," applied to them by a poet whom
XI.
I greatly admire, and often hinted at by others ?
There is far less imitation of Tennyson, Browning,
and Swinburne in the minor poetry of America than

A COMPARATIVE SURVEY.
in that of Great Britain ; the former always has sweet
ness, and often strength, and not seldom a fresh
ness and simplicity that are the garb of fresh and
simple thoughts. America has been passing through
the two phases which precede the higher forms of
art : the landscape period, and the sentimental or emo
tional ; and she is now establishing her figure-schools
of painting and song. A dramatic element is rapidly
coming to light. The truth is that our minor poetry,
with a few exceptions, is not well known abroad ; a
matter of the less importance, since this is the coun
try, with its millions of living readers, to which the
true American bard must look for the affectionate
preservation of his name and fame. After a close
examination of the minor poets of Britain, during the
last fifteen years, I have formed, most unexpectedly,
the belief that an anthology could be culled from the
miscellaneous poetry of the United States equally
lasting and attractive with any selected from that of
Great Britain. I do not think that British poetry is
to decline with the loss of Tennyson, Arnold, Brown
ing, and the rest. There is no cause for dejection,
none for discouragement, as to the imaginative litera
ture of the motherland. The sterility in question is
not symbolical of the over-ripening of the historical
and aged British nation ; but is rather the afternoon
lethargy and fatigue of a glorious day, the product
of a critical, scholarly period succeeding a period of
unusual splendor, and soon to be followed, as I shall
hereafter show, by a new cycle of lyrical and dramatic
achievement ; England, the mother of nations, renews
her youth from her children, and hereafter will not
be unwilling to receive from us fresh, sturdy, and
vigorous returns for the gifts we have for two centu

291

The recent
aspect, and
its true
meaning.

Reflex in
fluence of
A merica
upon the
motherland.

292

Past and
future.

THE NEW DAWN.


ries obtained from her hands. The catholic thinker
derives from the new-born hope and liberty of our
own country the prediction of a jubilant and meas
ureless art-revival, in which England and America
shall labor hand to hand. If we have been children,
guided by our elders, and taught to repeat lispingly
their antiquated and timorous words, we boast that
we have attained majority through fire and blood, and
even now are learning to speak for ourselves. I be
lieve that the day is not far distant when the fine
and sensitive lyrical feeling of America will swell into
floods of creative song. The most musical of Eng
land's younger poets those on whom her hopes
depend are with us, and inscribe their works to
the champions of freedom and equality in either
world. Thus our progress may exert a reflex influ
ence upon the mother-country; and to the land from
which we inherit the wisdom of Shakespeare, the rapt
ure of Milton, and Wordsworth's insight of natural
things, our own shall return themes and forces that
may animate a new-risen choir of her minstrels, while
neither shall be forbidden to follow melodiously where
the other may be inspired to lead.

CHAPTER

IX.

ROBERT BROWNING.
IN a study of Browning, the most original and un
equal of living poets, three features obviously
present themselves. His dramatic gift, so rare in
these times, calls for recognition and analysis ; bis
method the eccentric quality of his expression
constantly intrudes upon the reader; lastly, the moral
of his verse warrants a closer examination than we
give to the sentiments of a more conventional poet.
My own perception of the spirit which his poetry,
despite his assumption of a purely dramatic purpose,
has breathed from the outset, is one which I shall
endeavor to convey in simple and direct terms.
Various other examples have served to illustrate
the phases of a poet's life, but Browning arouses
discussion with respect to the elements of poetry as
an art. Hitherto I have given some account of an
author's career and writings before proffering a crit
ical estimate of the latter. But this man's genius is
so peculiar, and he has been so isolated in style and
purpose, that I know not how to speak of his works
without first seeking a key to their interpretation, and
hence must reverse in some measure the order hitherto
pursued.

Robert
Browning :
born in
Camberwell,
near Lon
don, i8x&

294

ROBERT BROWNING.

It is customary to call Browning a dramatist, and


without doubt he represents the dramatic element,
such as it is, of the recent English school. He counts
among his admirers many intellectual persons, some
of whom pronounce him the greatest dramatic poet
since Shakespeare, and one has said that " it is to
him we must pay homage for whatever is good, and
great, and profound, in the second period of the
Poetic Drama of England."
This may be true ; nevertheless, it also should be
declared, with certain modifications, that Robert Brown
ing, in the original sense of the term, is not a dra
matic poet at all.
Procter, in the preface to a collection of his own
songs, remarks with precision and truth : " It is, in
fact, this power of forgetting himself, and of imagin
ing and fashioning characters different from his own,
which constitutes the dramatic quality. A man who
can set aside his own idiosyncrasy is half a drama
tist." Although Browning's earlier poems were in the
form of plays, and have a dramatic purpose, they are
at the opposite remove, in spirit and method, from
the models of the true histrionic era, the work of
Fletcher, Webster, and Shakespeare. They have the
sacred rage and fire, but the flame is that of Brown
ing, and not of the separate creations which he strives
to inform.
The early drama was the mouthpiece of a passion
ate and adventurous era. The stage bore to the
period the relations of the modern novel and news
paper to our own, not only holding the mirror up to
nature, but showing the " very age and body of the

HIS DRAMATIC GENIUS.


time." It was a vital growth, sprung from the people,
and having a reflex action upon their imagination and
conduct. Even in Queen Anne's day the theatre was
the meeting-place of wits, and, if the plays were
meaner, it was because they copied the manners of
an artificial world. But, in either case, the play
wrights were in no more hazard of representing their
own natures, in one role after another, than are the
leader-writers in their versatile articles upon topics of
our day. They invented a score of characters, or
took them from real life, grouped them with con
summate effect, placed them in dramatic situations,
lightened tragedy with mirth, mellowed comedy with
pathos, and produced a healthful and objective dra
matic literature. They looked outward, not inward :
their imagination was the richer for it, and of a
more varied kind.
The stage still has its office, but one more sub
sidiary than of old. Our own age is no less stirring
than was the true dramatic period, and is far more
subtile in thought. But the poets fail to represent it
objectively, and the drama does not act as a safetyvalve for the escape of extreme passion and desire.
That office the novelists have undertaken, while the
press brings its dramas to every fireside. Yet the
form of the play still seems to a poet the most com
prehensive mould in which to cast a masterpiece. It
is a combination of scenic and plastic art ; it includes
monologue, dialogue, and song, action and medita
tion, man and woman, the lover, the soldier, and
the thinker, all vivified by the imagination, and
each essential to the completeness of the whole.
Even to poets like Byron, who have no perception of
natures differing from their own, it has a fascination

295

The modern
stage.

Cp. " Poets


ofAmer
ica" : pp.
467-469.

296

ROBERT BROWNING.
as a vehicle of expression, and the result is seen in
" Sardanapalus " and "Cain." Hence the closet-drama;
and although praiseworthy efforts, as in " Virginius "
and "Ion," have been made to revive the early method,
these modern stage-plays often are unpoetical and
tame. Most of what is excellent in our dramatic
verse is to be found in plays that could not be suc
cessfully enacted.
While Browning's earlier poems are in the dramatic
form, his own personality is manifest in the speech
and movement of almost every character of each
piece. His spirit is infused, as if by metempsychosis,
within them all, and forces each to assume a strange
Pentecostal tone, which we discover to be that of the
poet himself. Bass, treble, or recitative, whether in
pleading, invective, or banter, the voice still is
there. But while his characters have a common
manner and diction, we become so wonted to the
latter that it seems like a new dialect which we have
mastered for the sake of its literature. This feeling
is acquired after some acquaintance with his poems,
and not upon a first or casual reading of them.
The brief, separate pieces, which he terms " dra
matic lyrics," are just as properly dramas as are
many of his five-act plays. Several of the latter were
intended for stage-production. In these we feel that
the author's special genius is hampered, so that the
student of Browning deems them less rich and rare
than his strictly characteristic essays. Even in the
most conventional, this poet cannot refrain from the
long monologues, stilted action, and metaphysical discursion, which mark the closet-drama and unfit a
composition for the stage. His chief success is in
the portrayal of single characters and specific moods.

THE POET OF PSYCHOLOGY.

297

I would noti3
be understood to praise his originality His special
at the expense of his greatness. His mission has mission.
been that of exploring those secret regions which
generate the forces whose outward phenomena it is
for the playwrights to illustrate. He has opened a
new field for the display of emotional power, found
ing, so to speak, a sub-dramatic school of poetry,
whose office is to follow the workings of the mind,
to discover the impalpable elements of which human
motives and passions are composed. The greatest
forces are the most elusive, the unseen mightier than
the seen ; modern genius chooses to seek for the
under-currents of the soul rather than to depict acts
and situations. Browning, as the poet of psychology,
escapes to that stronghold whither, as I have said,
science and materialism are not yet prepared to follow
him. How shall the chemist read the soul ? No
former poet has so relied upon this province for the
excursions of his muse. True, he explores by night,
stumbles, halts, has vague ideas of the topography,
and often goes back upon his course. But, though
others complete the unfinished work of Columbus, it
is to him that we award the glory of discovery,
not to the engineers and colonists that succeed him,
however firmly they plant themselves and correctly
map out the now undisputed land.

II.
Browning's manner is so eccentric as to challenge Analysis of
attention and greatly affect our estimate of him as a Browning's
method.
poet. Eccentricity is not a proof of genius, and even
an artist should remember that originality consists not
only in doing things differently, but also in " doing

298

what cmpaet.

Rtukinm
^rec'uu^n.

ROBERT BROWNING.
things better." The genius of Shakespeare and Moliere enlarged and beautified their style ; it did not
distort it. Again, the grammarian's statement is true,
that Poetry is a means of Expression. A poet may
differ from other men in having profounder emotions
and clearer perceptions, but this is not for him to
assume, nor a claim which they are swift to grant.
The lines,
"O many are the poets that are sown
By Nature ! men endowed with highest gifts,
The vision and the faculty divine ;
Yet wanting the accomplishment of verse,"
imply that the recognized poet is one who gives voice,
in expressive language, to the common thought and
feeling which lie deeper than ordinary speech. He
is the interpreter : moreover, he is the maker, an
artist of the beautiful, the inventor of harmonious
numbers which shall be a lure and a repose.
A poet, however emotional or rich in thought, must
not fail to express his conception and make his work
attractive. Over-possession is worth less than a more
commonplace faculty ; he that has the former . is a
sorrow to himself and a vexation to his hearers,
while one whose speech is equal to his needs, and
who knows his limitations, adds something to the
treasury of song, and is able to shine in his place,
"and be content." Certain effects are suggested by
nature ; the poet discovers new combinations within
the ground which these afford. Ruskin has shown
that in the course of years, though long at fault, the
masses come to appreciate any admirable work. By
inversion, if, after a long time has passed, the world
still is repelled by a singer, and finds neither rest
nor music in him, the fault is not with the world ;

POETRY AND PROSE DISTINGUISHED.


there is something deficient in his genius, he is so
much the less a poet.
The distinction between poetry and prose must be
sharply observed. Poetry is an art, a specific fact,
which, owing to the vagueness fostered by minor wits,
we do not sufficiently insist upon. We hear it said
that an eloquent prose passage is poetry, that a sun
set is a poem, and so on. This is well enough for
rhetorical effect, yet wholly untrue, and no poet should
permit himself to talk in that way. Poetry is poetry,
because it differs from prose ; it is artificial, and gives
us pleasure because we know it to be so. It is
beautiful thought expressed in rhythmical form, not
half expressed or uttered in the form of prose. It is
a metrical structure ; a spirit not disembodied, but in
the flesh, so as to affect the senses of living men.
Such is the poetry of Earth ; what that of a more
spiritual region may be I know not. Milton and
Keats never were in doubt as to the meaning of
their art. It is true that fine prose is a higher form
of expression than wretched verse ; but when a dis
tinguished young English poet thus writes to me,
" My own impression is that Verse is an inferior, or infant,
form of speech, which will ultimately perish altogether
The Seer, the Vates, the teacher of a new truth, is single,
while what you call artists are legion,"
when I read these words, I remember that the few
great seers have furnished models for the simplest
and greatest forms of art ; I feel that this poet
is growing heretical with respect, not to the law of
custom, but to a law which is above us all ; I fear
to discover a want of beauty, a vague transcenden
talism, rather than a clear inspiration, in his verse,

299

3oo

ROBERT BROWNING.

to see him become prosaic and substitute rhetoric for


passion, realism for naturalness, affectation for lofty
thought, and, "having been praised for bluntness," to
" affect a saucy roughness." In short, he is on the
edge of danger. Yet his remark denotes a just im
patience of forms so hackneyed that, once beautiful,
they now are stale and corrupt. It may be neces
sary, with the Pre-Raphaelites, to escape their thral
dom and begin anew. But the poet is a creator, not
an iconoclast, and never will tamely endeavor to say
in prose what can only be expressed in song. And
I have faith that my friend's wings will unfold, in
spite of himself, and lift him bravely as ever on their
accustomed flights.
l^^d""d%.
^e ^aPse ^ vears rnade Browning any more
Browning's attractive to the masses, or even to the judicious few ?
work'
He is said to have "succeeded by a series of fail
ures," and so he has, as far as notoriety means suc
cess, and despite the perpetuation of his faults. But
what is the fact which strikes the admiring and sym
pathetic student of his poetry and career ? Distrust
ing my own judgment, I asked a clear and impar
tial thinker, " How does Browning's work impress
you?" His reply, after a moment's consideration,
was : " Now that I try to formulate the sensation
which it always has given me, his work seems that
of a grand intellect painfully striving for adequate
use and expression, and never quite attaining either."
This was, and is, precisely my own feeling. The
question arises, What is at fault ? Browning's genius,
his chosen mode of expression, his period, or one
and all of these ? After the flush of youth is over, a
poet must have a wise method, if he would move
ahead. He must improve upon instinct by experience

THOUGHT AND EXPRESSION.


and common-sense. There is something amiss in one
who has to grope for his theme and cannot adjust
himself to his period ; especially in one who cannot
agreeably handle such themes as he arrives at. More
than this, however, is the difficulty in Browning's case.
Expression is the flower of thought ; a fine imagina
tion is wont to be rhythmical and creative, and many
passages, scattered throughout Browning's works, show
that his is no exception. It is a certain caprice or
perverseness of method, that, by long practice, has
injured his gift of expression ; while an abnormal
power of ratiocination, and a prosaic regard for de
tails, have handicapped him from the beginning. Be
sides, in mental arrogance and scorn of authority, he
has insulted Beauty herself, and furnished too much
excuse for small offenders. What may be condoned
in one of his breed is intolerable when mimicked by
every jackanapes and self-appointed reformer.
A group of evils, then, has interfered with the
greatness of his poetry. His style is that of a man
caught in a morass of ideas through which he has to
travel, wearily floundering, grasping here and there,
and often sinking deeper until there seems no prospect
of getting through. His latest works have been more
involved and excursive, less beautiful and elevating,
than most of those which preceded them. Possibly
his theory is that which was his wife's instinct, a
man being more apt than a woman with some reason
for what he does, that poetry is valuable only for
the statement which it makes, and must always be
subordinate thereto. Nevertheless, Emerson, in this
country, seems to have followed a kindred method ;
and who of our poets is greater, or so wise?

301

Defective
and capri
cious ex
pression.

His recent
productions.

302

ROBERT BROWNING.

in.
Fine natu
ralgifts.

Browning's early lyrics, and occasional passages of


recent date, show that he has melodious intervals,
and can be very artistic with no loss of original
power. Often the ring of his verse is sonorous, and
overcomes the jagged consonantal diction with stir
ring lyrical effect. The " Cavalier Tunes " are ex
amples. Such choruses as
"Marching along, fifty-score strong,
Great-hearted gentlemen, singing this song ! "
" King Charles, and who H do him right now ?
King Charles, and who's ripe for fight now?
Give a rouse : here 's, in Hell's despite now,
King Charles!"

Various
stirring
lyrics.

these, with, " Boot, saddle, to horse, and away ! "


show that Browning can put in verse the spirit of a
historic period, and has, or had, in him the making
of a lyric poet. How fresh and wholesome this work !
Finer still that superb stirrup-piece, best of its class
in the language, " How they brought the good news
from Ghent to Aix." " Ratisbon " and "The Lost
Leader," no less, are poems that fasten themselves
upon literature, and will not be forgotten. The old
fire flashes out, thirty years after, in " Herve RieL"
another vigorous production, unevenly sustained,
but superior to Longfellow's legendary ballads and
sagas. From among lighter pieces I will select for
present mention two, very unlike each other ; one, as
delightful a child's poem as ever was written, in fancy
and airy extravagance, and having a wildness and
pathos all its own, the daintiest bit of folk-lore in
English verse, to what should I refer but " The
Pied Piper of Hamelin?" The author made a strong

HIS GENERAL STYLE.

303

bid for the love of children, when he placed " By


Robert Browning" at its head, in the collection of
his poems. The other,
" Beautiful Evelyn Hope is dead !
Sit and watch by her side an hour,"
appeals, like Wordsworth's " She dwelt among the
untrodden ways," and Landor's " Rose Aylmer," to
the hearts of learned and unlettered, one and all.
Browning's style is the more aggressive, because, in
compelling beauty itself to suffer a change and con
form to all exigencies, it presents such a contrast to
the refined art of our day. I have shown that much
of this is due to natural awkwardness, but that the
author is able, on fortunate occasions, to better his
work, has just been amply illustrated. More often
he either has let his verse have its way, or has shaped
a theory of art by his own restrictions, and with that
contempt for the structure of his song which Plato
and St. Paul entertained for their fleshly bodies. If
the mischief ceased here, it would not be so bad,
but his genius has won pupils who copy his vices
without his strength. He and his wife injured each
the other's style as much as they sustained their
common aspiration and love of poesy. To be sure,
there was a strange similarity, by nature, between
their modes of speech ; and what I have said of the
woman's obscurity, affectations, elisions, will apply to
the man's with his i'thes and o'tkes, his dashes,
breaks, halting measures, and oracular exclamations
that convey no dramatic meaning to the reader. Her
verse is the more spasmodic ; his, the more meta
physical, and, while effective in the best of his dramatic
lyrics, is constantly running into impertinences worse

Evils ofhis
general
style.

The two
BrowninA

304

ROBERT BROWNING.
than those of his poorest imitators, and which would
not be tolerated for a moment in a lesser poet.
Parodies on his style, thrown off as burlesques, are more
intelligible than much of his " Dramatis Personae."
Unlike Tennyson, he does not comprehend the limits
of a theme ; nor is he careful as to the relative im
portance either of themes or details; his mind is so
alert that its minutest turn of thought must be ut
tered ; he dwells with equal precision upon the meanest
and grandest objects, and laboriously jots down every
point that occurs to him, parenthesis within paren
thesis, until we have a tangle as intricate as the
line drawn by an anemometer upon the recordingsheet. The poem is all zigzag, criss-cross, at odds
and ends, and, though we come out right at last,
strength and patience are exhausted in mastering it.
Apply the rule that nothing should be told in verse
which can be told in prose, and half his measures
would be condemned ; since their chief metrical pur
pose is, through the stress of rhythm, to fix our at
tention, by a certain unpleasant fascination, upon a
process of reasoning from which it otherwise would
break away.
For so much of Browning's crudeness as comes from
inability to express himself, or to find a proper theme,
he may readily be forgiven ; but whatever is due to
real or assumed irreverence for the divine art, among
whose votaries he stands enrolled, is a grievous wrong,
unworthy of the humble and delightful spirit of a true
craftsman. He forgets that art is the bride of the
imagination, from whose embraces true creative work
must spring. Lastly, concerning realism, while poets
are, as Mrs. Browning said, "your only truth-tellers,'1
it is not well that repulsive or petty facts should

'PARACELSUS?
always be recorded ; only the high, essential truths
demand a poet's illumination. The obscurity wherein
Browning disguises his realism is but the semblance
of imagination, a mist through which rugged details
jut out, while the central truth is feebly to be seen.

IV.
After a period of study at the London University
young Browning, in 1832, went to Italy, and acquired
a remarkable knowledge of the Italian life and lan
guage. He mingled with all classes of the people,
mastered details, and rummaged among the monas
teries of Lombardy and Venice, studying mediaeval
history, and filling his mind with the relics of a by
gone time. All this had much to do with the bent
of his subsequent work, and possibly was of more
benefit to his learning than to his ideality.
At the age of twenty-three he published his first
drama, Paracelsus; a most unique production, strictly
speaking, a metaphysical dialogue, as noticeable for
analytic power as the romances of Keats for pure
beauty. It did not find many readers, but no man
of letters could peruse it without seeing that a genu
ine poet had come to light. From that time the
author moved in the literary society of London, and
was recognized as one who had done something and
might do something more. The play is " Faust,"
with the action and passion, and much of the poetry
and music, upon which the fascination of the German
work depends, omitted; the hero resembles "Faust"
in the double aspiration to know and to enjoy, to
search out mystical knowledge, yet drink at all the
fountains of pleasure, lest, after a long struggle,
T

305

3o6

ROBERT BROWNING.
failing of knowledge, he should have lived in vain.
It must be understood that Mr. Browning's Paracel
sus was his own creation : a man of heroic longings,
observed at various intervals, from his twentieth year,
in which he leaves his native hamlet, until he dies
at the age of forty-eight, obscure, and with his
ideal seemingly unattained ; not the juggler, empiric,
and charlatan of history, whose record the poet
frankly gives us in a foot-note.
This poem has every characteristic of Browning's
genius. The verse is as strong and as weak as the
best and worst he has composed during thirty years,
and is pitched in a key now familiar to us all.
" Paracelsus," the fruit of his youth, serves as well
for a study of this poet as any later effort, and,
though inferior to " Pippa Passes " and " In a Bal
cony," is much better than his newest romance in
blank verse. I cannot agree with critics who say
that he did his poorest work first and has been mov
ing along an ascending scale ; on the contrary, his
faults and beauties have been somewhat evenly dis
tributed throughout his career. We are vexed in
" Paracelsus " by a vice that haunts him still, that
tedious garrulity which, however relieved by beautiful
passages, palls on the reader and weakens the gen
eral effect. As an offset, he displays in this poem,
with respect to every kind of poetic faculty except
the sense of proportion, gifts equal to those of any
compeer. By turns he is surpassingly fine. We have
strong dramatic diction :
"Festus, strange secrets are let out by Death,
Who blabs so oft the follies of this world :
And I am Death's familiar, as you know.

iparacelsus:
I helped a man to die, some few weeks since ;
. . . . No mean trick
He left untried ; and truly wellnigh wormed
All traces of God's finger out of him.
Then died, grown old; and just an hour before
Having lain long with blank and soulless eyes
He sate up suddenly, and with natural voice
Said, that in spite of thick air and closed doors
God told him it was June ; and he knew well,
Without such telling, harebells grew in June ;
And all that kings could ever give or take
Would not be precious as those blooms to him."
The conception is old as Shakespeare, but the
manner is large and effective. Few authors vary the
breaks and pauses of their blank verse so naturally
as Browning, and none can so well dare to extend
the proper limits of a poem. Here, as in later plays,
he shows a more realistic perception of scenery and
nature than is common with dramatic poets. We have
a bit of painting at the outset, in the passage begin
ning,
"Nay, Autumn wins you best by this its mute
Appeal to sympathy for its decay ! "
and others, equally fine and true, are scattered through
out the dialogue.
" Paracelsus " is meant to illustrate the growth and
progress of a lofty spirit, groping in the darkness of
his time. He first aspires to knowledge, and fails ;
then to pleasure and knowledge, and equally fails
to human eyes. The secret ever seems close at
hand :
"Ah, the curse, Aprile, Aprilel
We get so near so very, very near!
'T is an old tale : Jove strikes the Titans down
Not when they set about their mountain-piling,
But when another rock would crown their work!"

3o8

ROBERT BROWNING.
Now, it is a part of Browning's life-long habit, that
he here refuses to judge by ordinary standards, and
makes the hero's attainment lie even in his failure
and death. There are few more daring assertions of
the soul's absolute freedom than the words of Festus,
impressed by the nobility of his dying friend :
" I am for noble Aureole, God !
I am upon his side, come weal or woe !
His portion shall be mine ! He has done well !
I would have sinned, had I been strong enough,
As he has sinned ! Reward him, or I waive
Reward ! If thou canst find no place for him
He shall be king elsewhere, and I will be
His slave forever ! There are two of us ! "
The drama is well worth preserving, and even now
a curious and highly suggestive study. Its lyrical
interludes seem out of place. As an author's first
drama, it promised more for his future than if it had
been a finished production, and in any other case
but that of the capricious, tongue-tied Browning, the
promise might have been abundantly fulfilled.
In "Strafford," his second drama, the interest also
centres upon the struggles and motives of one heroic
personage, this time entangled in a fatal mesh of
great events. Apparently the poet, after some ex
perience of authorship, wished to commend his work
to popular sympathy, and tried to write a play that
should be fitted for the stage ; hence a tragedy, dedi
cated to Macready, of which the chief character, the
hapless Earl of Strafford, was assumed by that
tragedian. The piece is said to have been well re
ceived, but ran for five nights only, one of the chief
actors suddenly withdrawing from the cast. The
characters are eccentrically drawn, and are more

'STRAFFORD' AND ' SORDELLO:


serious and mystical than even the gloom of their
period would demand. It is hard to perceive the
motives of Lady Carlisle and the Queen ; there is no
underplot of love in the play, to develop the womanly
element, nor has it the humor of the great play
wrights, so essential to dramatic Contrast, and for
which the Puritans and the London populace might
afford rich material. Imagine Macready stalking por
tentously through the piece, the audience trying to
follow the story, and listening with patience to the
solemn speeches of Pym and Strafford, which answer
for a death-scene at the close. The language is
more natural than is usual with Browning, but here,
where he is least eccentric, he becomes tame until
we see that he is out of his element, and prefer his
striking psychology to a forced attempt at writing of
the academic kind.
Something of this must have struck the poet him
self, for, as if chagrined at his effort, he swung back
to the other extreme, and beyond his early startingplace : farther, happily, than any point he since has
ventured to reach. In no one of his recent works
has he been quite so "hard," loquacious, and im
practicable as in the renowned nondescript entitled
Sordello. Twenty-three years after its appearance he "SordtUo?
184a.
owned that its " faults of expression were many," and
added, "but with care for a man or book such would
be surmounted." The acknowledgment was partial.
" Sordello " is a fault throughout, in conception and
execution : nothing is " expressed," not even the " in
cidents in the development of a soul," though such
incidents may have had some nebulous origin in the
poet's mind. It is asking too much of our care for
a book or a man that we should surmount this chaotic

ROBERT BROWNING.
mass of word-building. Carlyle's " Sartor Resartus "
is a hard study, but, once entered upon, how po
etical ! what lofty episodes ! what wisdom, beauty,
and scorn ! Few such treasures await him that would
read the eleven thousand verses into which the fatal
facility of the rhymed-heroic measure has led the
muse of Browning. The structure, by its very ugli
ness and bulk, like some half-buried colossus in the
desert, may survive a lapse of time. I cannot per
suade myself to solicit credit for deeper insight by
differing from the common judgment with regard to
this unattractive prodigy.
It had its uses, seemingly, in acting as a purge to
cleanse the visual humors of the poet's eyes and to
leave his general system in an auspicious condition.
His next six years were devoted to the composition
of a picturesque group of dramas, the exact order
of which escapes me, but which finally were collected
"Beiu and in Bells and Pomegranates, a popular edition, issued
at"e7,^\s"o- m serial numbers, of this maturer work. " Luria,"
*6" King Victor and King Charles," and " The Return
"Luria." 0f the Druses," are stately pieces, historical or legend
ary, cast in full stage-form. In Luria we again see
Browning's favorite characterization, from a different
point of view. This is a large-moulded, suffering hero,
akin, if disturbed in conscience, to Wallenstein,
if devoted and magnanimous, to Othello. Luria, the
Moor, is like Othello in many ways: a brave and skil
ful general, who serves Florence (instead of Venice),
and declares,
"I can and have perhaps obliged the state,
Nor paid a mere son's duty."
He is so true and simple, that Domizia says of
him,

' luria:

3"

"How plainly is true greatness charactered


By such unconsciousness as Luria's here,
And sharing least the secret of itself ! "
personages.
ever
Browning
unworthy
makes
Strafford
of devotion
it, thedies
chief
to inantrait
behalf
idealof or
ofthis
trust,
ungrateful
classhowof A/moriu
zation.

Charles ; Luria is sacrificed by the Florence he has


saved, and destroys himself at the moment when love
and honor are hastening, too late, to crown him.
Djabal, false to himself, is true to the cause of the
Druses, and at last dies in expiation of his fault.
Valence, in " Colombe's Birthday," shows devotion of
a double kind, but is rewarded for his fidelity and
honor. Luitolfo, in "A Soul's Tragedy," is of a
kindred type. But I am anticipating. The language
of " Luria " often is in the grand manner. In depict
ing the Moorish general and his friend Husain,
brooding, generous children of the sun, the soldierly
Tiburzio, painted with a few master-strokes, and in
the element of Italian craft and intrigue, the author
is at home and well served by his knowledge of
mediaeval times. That is an eloquent speech of Domizia, near the end of the fourth act. Despite the
poverty of action, and the prolonged harangues, this
drama is worthy of its dedication to Landor and the
wish that it might be " read by his light " : almost
worthy
of the old
(Landor
bard'salways
munificent
weighed
return
out ofgold
praise
for : silver!)

Landor to

"Shakespeare is not our poet but the world's,


Therefore on him no speech ! and brief for thee,
Browning ! Since Chaucer was alive and hale,
No man hath walked along our roads with step
So active, so inquiring eye, or tongue
So varied in discourse. But warmer climes

312

ROBERT BROWNING.
Give brighter plumage, stronger wing : the breeze
Of Alpine heights thou playest with, borne on
Beyond Sorrento and Amalfi, where
The Siren waits thee, singing song for song."

" The Re
turn of the
Druses"

"The Return of the Druses," with its scenic and


choric effects, is like some of Byron's plays : the
scene, an isle of the Sporades ; the legend, halfVenetian, half-Oriental, one that only Browning could
make available. The girl Anael is an impassioned
character, divided between adoration for Hakeem, the
god of her race, whom she believes incarnate in
Djabal, and her love for Djabal as a man. The
tragedy, amid a good deal of trite and pedantic lan
guage, is marked by heroic situations and sudden
dramatic catastrophes. Several brilliant points are
made : one, where the Prefect lifts the arras, on the
other side of which death awaits him, and says,
"This is the first time for long years I enter
Thus, without feeling just as if I lifted
The lid up of my tomb ! . . . .
Let me repeat for the first time, no draught
Coming as from a sepulchre salutes me ! "
A moment, and the dagger is through his heart.
Another such is the wonder and contempt of Anael
at finding Djabal no deity, but an impostor ; while
perhaps the most telling point in the whole series of
Browning's plays is her cry of Hakeem ! made when
she comes to denounce Djabal, but, moved by love,
proclaims him as the god, and falls dead with the
effort. The poet, however, is justly censured for too
frequently taking off his personages by the intensity
of their own passions, without recourse to the dagger

' THE RETURN OF THE DRUSES.'


and bowl. He rarely does it after the "high Roman
fashion."
This tragedy observes the classic unities of time
and place. A hall in the Prefect's palace is made to
cover its entire action, which occupies only one day.
In its earnest14 pitch and lack of sprightly underplot,
it also is Greek or Italian. Not long ago, listening
to Salvini in "Samson" and other plays, I was struck
by their likeness, in simplicity of action and costume,
to the antique dramas. The actors were sufficient to
themselves, and the audience was intent upon their
lofty speech and passion ; there was no lack of
interest, but a refreshing spiritual elevation. The
Gothic method better suits the English stage, never
theless we need not refuse to profit by the experi
ence of other lands. Our poetry, like the language,
should draw its riches from all tongues and races,
and well can endure a larger infusion of the ancient
grandeur and simplicity.
In the play before us
Browning has but renewed the debt, long since in
curred, of English literature to the Italian, greater
than that to all other sources combined. Not with
out reason, in " De Gustibus," he sang,

3'3

The Classi
cal and
Gothic meth
ods in dra
matic art.

"Open my heart and you will see,


Graved inside of it, ' Italy.'
Such lovers old are I and she;
So it always was, so it still shall be ! "
"King Victor" is one of those conventional plays
in which he appears to ordinary advantage. His
three dramatic masterpieces are " Pippa Passes," " A
Blot in the 'Scutcheon," and "Colombe's Birthday."
The last-named play, inscribed to Barry Cornwall,
really is a fresh and lovely little drama. The fair

"King Vic
tor and
King
Charles."
" Colombe's
Birthday"

3i4

ROBERT BROWNING.
young heroine has possessed her duchy for a single
year, and now, upon her birthday, as she unsuspect
ingly awaits the greetings of her courtiers, is called
upon to surrender her inheritance to Prince Berthold,
decreed to be the lawful heir. At the same time
Valence, a poor advocate of Cleves, seeks audience
in behalf of his suffering townsmen, and ends by
defending the Duchess's title to her rank. She loves
him, and is so impressed by his nobility and cour
age as to decline the hand of the Prince, and sur
render her duchy, to become the wife of Valence,
with whom she joyfully retires to the ruined castle
where her youth was spent. This play might be
performed to the great interest of an audience com
posed exclusively of intellectual persons, who could
follow the elaborate dialogue and would be charmed
with its poetry and subtile thought. Once accept the
manner of Browning, and you must be pleased with
the delineation of the characters. " Colombe " herself
is exquisite, and like one of Shakespeare's women.
Valence seems too harsh and dry to win her, and
her choice, despite his loyalty and intellect, is hardly
defensible. Still, " Colombe's Birthday " is the most
natural and winsome of the author's stage-plays.
" A Blot in the 'Scutcheon " was brought out at
Drury Lane, in 1843. It ls full of poetry and pathos,
but there is little in it to relieve the human spirit,
which cannot bear too much of earnestness and woe
added to the mystery and burden of our daily lives.
Yet the piece has such tragic strength as to stamp
the author as a great poet, though in a narrow range.
One almost forgets the singular improbabilities of the
story, the blase talk of the child-lovers (an English
Juliet of fourteen is against nature), the stiff language

'A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON:

3^

of the retainers, and various other blemishes. There


is a serenade in which, unchecked by his fear of
detection, Mertoun is made to sing under Mildred's
window,
" There 's a woman like the dew-drop, she 's so purer than the
purest ! "
This song, composed seven years before the poet's
meeting with Miss Barrett, is precisely in the style of
" Lady Geraldine's Courtship," and other ballads of
the gifted woman who became his wife.
The most simple and varied of his plays that
which shows every side of his genius, has most light
ness and strength, and all in all may be termed a
representative poem is the beautiful drama with
"Pifpa
the quaint title of " Pippa Passes." It is a cluster of Passes."
four scenes, with prologue, epilogue, and interludes ;
half prose, half poetry, varying with the refinement of
the dialogue. Pippa is a delicately pure, good, blithe
some peasant-maid. " 'T is but a little black-eyed,
pretty, singing Felippa, gay silk-winding girl," though
with token, ere the end, that she is the child of a
nobleman, put out of the way by a villain, Maffeo, at
instigation of the next heir. Pippa knows nothing of
this, but is piously content with her life of toil. It
is New Year's Day at Asolo. She springs from bed,
in her garret chamber, at sunrise, resolved to enjoy
to the full her sole holiday : she will not " squander
a wavelet" of it, not a "mite of her twelve hours'
treasure." Others can be happy throughout the year:
haughty Ottima and Sebald, the lovers on the hill ;
Jules and Phene, the artist and his bride ; Luigi and
his mother; Monsignor, the Bishop; but Pippa has
only this one day to enjoy. She envies these great

316

ROBERT DROWNING.
ones a little, but reflects that God's love is best, after
all. And yet, how little can she do ! How can she
possibly affect the world ? Thus she muses, and goes
out, singing, to her holiday and the sunshine. Now,
it so happens that she passes, this day, each of the
groups or persons we have named, at an important
crisis in their lives, and they hear her various carols
as she trills them forth in the innocent gladness of
her heart. Sebald and Ottima have murdered the
latter's aged husband, and are unremorseful in their
guilty love. Jules is the victim of a fraud practised
by his rival artists, who have put in his way a young
girl, a paid model, whom he believes to be a pure
and cultured maiden. He has married her, and just
discovered the imposture. Luigi is hesitating whether
to join a patriotic conspiracy. Monsignor is tempted
by Maffeo to overlook his late brother's murder, for
the sake of the estates, and utterly to ruin Pippa.
The scene between Ottima and Sebald is the most
intense and striking passage of all Browning's poetry,
and, possibly, of any dramatic verse composed during
his lifetime up to the date of this play. A passion
ate esoteric theme is treated with such vigor and
skill as to free it from any debasing taint, in the
dialogue from which I quote :
" Ottima
The past, would you give up the past
Such as it is, pleasure and crime together?
Give up that noon I owned my love for you
The garden's silence even the single bee,
Persisting in his toil, suddenly stopt,
And where he hid you only could surmise
By some campanula's chalice set a-swing
As he clung there ' Yes, I love you ! '
Sebald.
And I drew
Back ; put far back your face with both my hands

'PIPPA PASSES.'
Lest you should grow too full of me your face
So seemed athirst for my whole soul and body !
Ottima. Then our crowning night
Sebald.
The July night?
Ottima. The day of it too, Sebald !
When the heaven's pillars seemed o'erbowed with heat,
Its black-blue canopy seemed let descend
Close on us both, to weigh down each to each,
And smother up all life except our life.
So lay we till the storm came.
Sebald.
How it came !
Ottima. Buried in woods we lay, you recollect;
Swift ran the searching tempest overhead ;
And ever and anon some bright white shaft
Burnt thro' the pine-tree roof, here burnt and there.
As if God's messenger thro' the close wood screen
Plunged and replunged his weapon at a venture,
Feeling for guilty thee and me : then broke
The thunder like a whole sea overhead
Sebald.
Yes !
How did we ever rise ?
Was it that we slept ? Why did it end ?
Ottima.
I felt you,
Fresh tapering to a point the ruffled ends
Of my loose locks 'twixt both your humid lips
(My hair is fallen now knot it again!)
Sebald. I kiss you now, dear Ottima, now, and now !
This way ? Will you forgive me be once more
My great queen ?
Ottima.
Bind it thrice about my brow ;
Crown me your queen, your spirit's arbitress,
Magnificent in sin. Say that!
Sebald.
I crown you
My great white queen, my spirit's arbitress,
Magnificent "
But here Pippa passes, singing
"God's in his heaven,
All 's right with the world ! "

See "Pippa
Passes,"
Scene I.

3i8

ROBERT BROWNING.
Sebald is stricken with fear and remorse ; his para
mour becomes hideous in his eyes; he bids her dress
her shoulders, wipe off that paint, and leave him, for
he hates her! She, the woman, is at least true to
her lover, and prays God to be merciful, not to her,
but to him.
The scene changes to the post-nuptial meeting of
Jules and Phene, and then in succession to the other
passages and characters we have mentioned. All
these persons are vitally affected, have their lives
changed, merely by Pippa's weird and suggestive
songs, coming, as if by accident, upon their hearing
at the critical moment. With certain reservations this
is a strong and delicate conception, admirably worked
out. The usual fault is present : the characters,
whether students, peasants, or soldiers, all talk like
sages ; Pippa reasons like a Paracelsus in panta
lets, her intellectual songs are strangely put in the
mouth of an ignorant silk-winding girl ; Phene is
more natural, though mature, even for Italy, at four
teen. Browning's children are old as himself; he
rarely sees them objectively. Even in the songs he is
awkward, void of lyric grace ; if they have the wild
ing flavor, they have more than need be of specks
and gnarledness. In the epilogue Pippa seeks her
garret, and, as she disrobes, after artlessly running
over the events of her holiday, soliloquizes thus :
" Now, one thing I should like really to know :
How near I ever might approach all these
I only fancied being, this long day
Approach, I mean, so as to touch them so
As to . . in some way . . move them if you please,
Do good or evil to them some slight way."
Finally, she sleeps, unconscious of her day's mis

'A SOUL'S tragedy:

319

sion, and of the fact that her own life is to be


something more than it has been, but not until she
has murmured these words of a hymn :
" All service is the same with God,
With God, whose puppets, best and worst,
Are we : there is no last nor first."
wisdom,
wealth
" Pippa ofPasses
tooriginal
which
" isfancy
every
a work
and
poetof
romance,
will
pure doart,
apart
justice.
andfrom
hasIts
itsa production.
* ran and

faults are those of style and undue intellectuality.


To quote the author's words, in another drama,
" Ah ? well ! he o'er-refines, the scholar's fault ! "
As it is, we accept his work, looking upon it as upon
some treasured yet bizarre painting of the mixed
school, whose beauties are the more striking for its
defects. The former are inherent, the latter external
and subordinate.
value
both
Everything
: and
first, interest,
for
from
a masterly
this
and -"A
poet distinction
Soul's
is, or Tragedy"
usedbetween
to be,
is the
of "A
Tn^ea>"
SouPs

action of sentiment and that founded on principle,


and, secondly, for wit, satire, and knowledge of af
fairs. Ogniben, the Legate, is the most thorough
man of the world Browning has drawn. That is a
matchless stroke, at the close, where he says : " I
have seen four-and-twenty leaders of revolts." It is
a consolation to recall this when a pretender arises ;
his race is measured, his fall will surely come.
With "Luria," in 1845-6, Browning, whose plays
had been briefly performed, and whose closet-dra
mas had found too small a reading, made his " last
attempt, for the present, at dramatic poetry." It

320

ROBERT BROWNING.
remains to examine his miscellaneous after-work, in
cluding the long poems which have appeared within
the last five years, thus far the most prolific, if not
the most creative, period of his untiring life.

Something of a dramatic character pertains to


nearly all of Browning's lyrics. Like his wife, he has
preferred to study human hearts rather than the
forms of nature. A note to the first collection of
his briefer poems places them under the head of
Dramatic Pieces. This was at a time when English
poets were enslaved to the idyllic method, and forgot
that their readers had passions most suggestive to art
when exalted above the tranquillity of picturesque re
pose. Herein Browning justly may claim originality.
Even the Laureate combined the art of Keats with
the contemplative habit of Wordsworth, and adapted
them to his own times ; while Browning was the
prophet of that reaction which holds that the proper
study of mankind is man. His effort, weak or able,
was at figure-painting, in distinction from that of
landscape or still-life. It has not flourished during
the recent period, but we are indebted to him for
what we have of it. In an adverse time it was
natural for it to assume peculiar, almost morbid
phases ; but of this struggling, turbid figure-school,
variously represented by the younger Lytton, Rossetti,
Swinburne, and others, he was the long-neglected
progenitor. His genius may have been unequal to
his aims. It is not easy for him to combine a score
of figures upon the ample canvas : his work is at its
best in separate ideals, or, rather, in portraits, his

DRAMATIC ROMANCES AND LYRICS.


dramatic talent being more realistic than imaginative.
Still, portraiture, in a certain sense, is the highest
form of painting, and Browning's personal studies
must not be undervalued. As usual, even here he is
unequal, and, while some of them are matchless, in
others, like all men of genius who aim at the highest,
he conspicuously fails. A man of talent may never
fail, yet never rise above a fixed height. Yet if
Browning were a man of great genius his failures
would not so outnumber his successes that half his
lyrics could be missed without injury to his repu
tation.
The shorter pieces, " Dramatic Romances and Lyr
ics," in the first general collection of his works, are
of a better average grade than those in his latest
book of miscellanies. One of the best is " My Last
Duchess," a masterly sketch, comprising within sixty
lines enough matter to furnish Browning, nowadays,
with an excuse for a quarto. Nothing can be subtler
than the art whereby the Duke is made to reveal a
cruel tragedy of which he was the relentless villain,
to betray the blackness of his heart, and to suggest
a companion-tragedy in his betrothal close at hand.
Thus was introduced a new method, applied with
such coolness as to suggest the idea of vivisection or
morbid anatomy.
But let us group other lyrics in this collection with
the matter of two later volumes, Men and Women,
and Dramatis Persona. These books, made up of
isolated poems, contain the bulk of his work during
the eighteen years which followed his marriage in
1846. While their contents include no long poem or
drama, they seem, upon the whole, to be the fullest
expression of his genius, and that for which he is
14*
u

321

322

ROBERT BROWNING.
likeliest to be remembered. Ever)' poet has limita
tions, and in such briefer studies Browning keeps
within the narrowest bounds allotted to him. Very
few of his best pieces are in " Dramatis Persona,"
the greater part of which book is made up of his
most ragged, uncouth, and even puerile verse ; and
it is curious that it appeared at a time when his wife
was scribbling the rhetorical verse of those years
which I have designated as her period of decline.
But observe the general excellence of the fifty poems
in " Men and Women," collected nine years earlier,
when the author was forty-three years old, and at his
prime. In the chapter upon Tennyson it was stated
that almost every poet has a representative book,
showing him at full height and variety. " Men and
Women," like the Laureate's volume of 1842, is the
most finished and comprehensive of the author's
works, and the one his readers least could spare.
Here we find numbers of those thrilling, skilfully
dramatic studies, which so many have imitated with
out catching the secret of their power.
The general effect of Browning's miscellaneous
poems is like that of a picture-gallery, where cabinetpaintings, by old and modern masters, are placed at
random upon the walls. Some are rich in color ;
others, strong in light and shade. A few are elabo
rately finished, more are careless drawings, fresh, but
hurriedly sketched in. Often the subjects are repul
sive, but occasionally we have the solitary, impressive
figure of a lover or a saint.
The poet is as familiar with mediaeval thought and
story as most authors with their own time, and adapts
them to his lyrical uses. " Andrea del Sarto " be
longs to the same group with " My Last Duchess."

'MEN AND WOMEN:


It is the language of " the faultless painter," ad
dressed to his beautiful and thoughtless wife, for
whom he has lowered his ideal and from whose
chains he cannot break, though he knows she is un
worthy, and even false to him. He moans before
one of Rafael's drawings, excusing the faults, in envy
of the genius :
" Still, what an arm ! and I could alter it.
But all the play, the insight and the stretch
Out of me ! out of me ! And wherefore out ?
Had you enjoined them on me, given me soul,
We might have risen to Rafael, I and you.
But had you O, with the same perfect brow,
And perfect eyes, and more than perfect mouth,
And the low voice my soul hears, as a bird
The fowler's pipe, and follows to the snare,
Had you, with these the same, but brought a mind !
Some women do so. Had the mouth there urged
' God and the glory ! never care for gain ! '
I might have done it for you."
Were it indeed "all for love," then were the "world
well lost " ; but even while he dallies with his wife
she listens for her gallant's signal. This poem is
one of Browning's finest studies : of late he has
given us nothing equal to it. The picture of the
rollicking " Fra Lippo Lippi " is broad, free-handed,
yet scarcely so well done. " Pictor Ignotus " is upon
another art-theme, and in quiet beauty differs from
the poet's usual manner. Other old-time studies,
good and poor, which served to set the fashion for a
number of minor poets, are such pieces as " Count
Gismond," " Cristina," "The Laboratory," and "The
Confessional."

323

324

ROBERT BROWNING.

" Christmas
How perilous an easy rhymed-metre is to this
Evt" and
author
was discernible in "Sordello." After the same
" Easter
Day," 1850- manner he is tempted to garrulity in the semi-relig
ious poems, " Christmas Eve " and " Easter Day." It
is difficult otherwise to account for their dreary flow,
since they are no more original in theology than
poetical in language and design.
It would be strange if Browning were not indebted,
for some of his most powerful themes, to the super
stition from which mediaeval art, politics, and daily
life took their prevailing tone. In his analysis of
its quality he seems to me extremely profound. Mochurch
nasticism in Spain even now is not so different from
studied
hatry ofof the
a piece
fifteenth
like century,
the " Soliloquy
and theof repulsive
the Spanish
imister," written in the harshest verse, well consorts
period when the orders, that took their origin
" "lSfi0" Pur'tv>
Decorne degraded through lust,
in e
jealousy, and every cardinal sin. Browning
gluttony,^. k^ as Dor(f in ^ iuustrations t0 Les
draws 11s I\^queS) with porcine or wolfish faces,
oed with vice, defiled in body and
monstrous, s^alVp orders his Tomb" has been critisoul. "The B'sK\ a {aithful study of the Romish
cised
ecclesiastic,
as notA. beingX^.
D. 15-, ^
^ .g Qnej q
misapprehend
the
&
the. spirit of that period
strongest portraitures.
.
Religion
K 0
then , was
t.
ancj greed; its
compouniKpf fear, bigotry;
f
'
with
trained
somethingVater
in^e.Church, seemet
than ^fTJ
t0 *emselves

f
often a
officers,
.
'
invested

-i ailsgr
Tier vear<?
ofx goodj andj evil,
years nf
01 ritualistic service,,
made
7 gross with
' , pelf,
i/Noalnnsv
T'ousy. seK.
sensualism,: and even
1blood-guiltiness,
. 1-t.i
vbecame>wranp-elv
3S^n6eiy ntermixed.
.. . ,
,The
poet overlays
1
this
, ' groundwork
j **.with tiat love of art

MEDIAEVAL STUDIES.

325

and luxury of jasper, peach-blossom marble, and


lazuli inbred in every Italian, and even with the
scholar's desire to have his epitaph carved aright :
"Choice Latin, picked phrase, Tully's every word,
No gaudy ware h'ke Gandolf's second line,
Tully, my masters ? Ulpian serves his need !
And then how I shall lie through centuries,
And hear the blessed mutter of the mass,
And see God made and eaten all day long,
And feel the steady candle-flame, and taste
Good, strong, thick, stupefying incense-smoke ! "
All this commanded to his bastards ! And for the
rest, were ever suspicion, hatred, delight at outwit
ting a rival in love and preferment, and every other
loathsome passion strong in death, more ruthlessly
and truthfully depicted?
Of strictly mediaeval church studies, "The Heretic's " The Her
etic's Trag'
Tragedy" and "Holy-Cross Day," with their grotesque edjr," etc.
diction, annotations, and prefixes, are the most skil
ful reproductions essayed in our time. Browning
alone could have conceived or written them. In " A
Grammarian's Funeral," " Abt Vogler," and " Master
Hugues," early scholarship and music are commemo
rated. The language of the simplest of these is so in
tricate that we have to be educated in a new tongue
to comprehend them. Their value lies in the human
nature revealed
natural
aspects developed
under suchin fantastic,
other times.
and, to us, uifc
"Artemis Prologuizes," the poet's antique ^fotch,
is as unclassical as one might expect from^f affected
title. " Saul," a finer poem, may have flushed hints
to Swinburne with respect to anapejj.yc verse and the
Hebraic feeling. Three poems --which strive to re
produce the early likeness^gg spirit of Christianity,

Studies
upon themes
takenfrom
thefirst
century-

326

ROBERT BROWNING.
merit close attention. One describes the raising of
Lazarus, narrated in an " Epistle of Karshish, the
Arab Physician." The pious, learned mage sees in
the miracle
"but a case of mania subinduced
By epilepsy, at the turning-point
Of trance prolonged unduly some three days."
" Cleon " is an exposition of the highest ground
reached by the Pagan philosophy, set forth in a
letter written, by a wise poet, to Protos, the King.
At the end he makes light of the preachings of Paul,
who is welcome to the few proselytes he can make
among the ignorant slaves :
"And (as I gathered from a bystander)
Their doctrines could be held by no sane man."
The reader is forced to stop and consider what
despised doctrines even now may be afloat, which in
time may constitute the whole world's creed. The
most elaborate of these pieces is "A Death in the
Desert," the last words of St. John, the Evangelist,
recorded by Pamphylax, an Antiochene martyr. The
prologue and epilogue are sufficiently pedantic, but,
like the long-drawn narrative, so characteristic, that
this curious production may be taken as a represent
ative poem. A similar bit of realism is the sketch
of a great poet, seen in every-day life by a fellowtoWJisman, entitled, " How it Strikes a Contempo
rary. "V And now, having selected a few of these
miscellaneous pieces to represent the mass, how shall
we define their, true value, and their influence upon
recent art?
.v-Browning is justified in offering such works as a
substitute for poetic treatment of English themes,

SCHOLASTIC REALISM.
since he is upon ground naturally his own. Yet as
poems they fail to move us, and to elevate gloriously
the soul, but are the outgrowth of minute realism and
speculation. To quote from one who is reviewing a
kindred sort of literature, they sin " against the spirit
of antiquity, in carrying back the modern analytic
feeling to a scene where it does not belong." It is
owing precisely to this sin that several of Browning's
longer works are literary and rhythmical prodigies,
monuments of learning and labor rather than enno
bling efforts of the imagination. His hand is bur
dened by too great accumulation of details, and
then there is the ever-present spirit of Robert Brown
ing peering from the eyes of each likeness, however
faithful, that he portrays.
He is the most intellectual of poets, Tennyson not
excepted. Take, for example, "Caliban," with its
text, "Thou thoughtest I was altogether such an one
as thyself." The motive is a study of anthropomor
phism, by reflection of its counterpart in a lower
animal, half man, half beast, possessed of the faculty
of speech. The "natural theology" is food for thought;
the poetry, descriptive and otherwise, realism carried
to such perfection as to seem imagination. Here we
have Browning's curious reasoning at its best. But
what can be more vulgar and strictly unpoetical than
" Mr. Sludge, the Medium," a composition of the
same period ? Our familiarity with such types as
those to which the author's method is here applied
enables us to test it with anything but satisfaction.
Applied to a finer subject, in " Bishop Blougram's
Apology," we heartily admire its virile analysis of the
motives actuating the great prelate, who after due
reflection has rejected

327
Defect of
t/teforecitedpoems.

Browning?'s
subtilty of
intellect.
" Caliban."

"Mr.
Sludge."

" Bishop
Blougram."

328

ROBERT BROWNING.
" A life of doubt diversified by faith
For one of faith diversified by doubt."
Cardinal Wiseman is worldly and insincere ; the
poet, Gigadibs, is earnest and on the right side ; yet,
somehow, we do not quite despise the churchman
nor admire the poet. This piece is at once the fore
most defence and arraignment of Philistinism, drawn
up by a thinker broad enough to comprehend both
sides. As an intellectual work, it is meat and wine ;
as a poem, as a thing of beauty, but that is quite
another point in issue.
Browning's offhand, occasional lyrics, such as " War
ing," " Time's Revenges," " Up in a Villa," " The Ital
ian in England," " By the Fireside," " The Worst of
It," etc., are suggestive, and some of them widely
familiar. His style has been caught by others. The
picturesqueness and easy rhythm of " The Flight of
the Duchess," and the touches in briefer lyrics, are
repeated by minnesingers like Owen Meredith and
Dobell. There is a grace and turn that still evades
them, for sometimes their master can be as sweet and
tuneful as Lodge, or any other of the skylarks. Wit
ness " In a Gondola," that delicious Venetian cantata,
full of music and sweet sorrow, or "One Way of Love,"
for example, but such melodies are none too fre
quent. When he paints nature, as in " Home Thoughts,
from Abroad," how fresh and fine the landscape !
" And after April, when May follows,
And the white-throat builds, and all the swallows,
Hark I where my blossomed pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms, and dew-drops at the bent spray's edge
That 's the wise thrush ; he sings each song twice ovfrt
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture 1 "

HIS SUGGESTIVENESS.
Having in mind Shakespeare and Shelley, I neverthe
less think the last three lines the finest ever written
touching the song of a bird. Contrast therewith the
poet's later method, the prose-run-mad of stanzas
such as this :
" Hobbs
Nobbshints
prints
blue,
blue,
straight
claret hecrowns
turtlehis
eats.
cup.
Nokes outdares Stokes in azure feats,
Both gorge. Who fished the murex up ?
What porridge had John Keats ? "
And this by no means the most impertinent of kindred
verses in his books, poetry that neither gods nor
men can endure or understand, and yet interstrewn
with delicate trifles, such as " Memorabilia," which for
suggestiveness long will be preserved. Who so deft to
catch the one immortal moment, the fleeting exqui
site word? Who so wont to reach for it, and wholly
fail?
VI.
We come, at last, to a class of Browning's poems
that I have grouped for their expression of that domi
nating sentiment, to which reference was made at the
beginning of this review. Their moral is that of the
apothegm that " Attractions are proportional to desti
nies " ; of rationalistic freedom, as opposed to Calvin
ism ; of a belief that the greatest sin does not consist
in giving rein to our desires, but in stinting or too
prudently repressing them. Life must have its full
and free development. And, as love is the masterpassion, he is most earnest in illustrating this belief
from its good or evil progress, and to this end has
composed his most impressive verse.

329

33Q

ROBERT BROWNING.
A main lesson of Browning's emotional poetry is
that the unpardonable sin is "to dare something
against nature." To set bounds to love is to commit
that sin. Through his instinct for conditions which
engender the most dramatic forms of speech and ac
tion, he is, at least, as an artist, tolerant of what is
called an intrigue ; and that many complacent English
and American readers do not recognize this, speaks
volumes either for their stupidity, or for their hypoc
risy and inward sympathy in a creed which they pro
fess to abhor. Affecting to comprehend and admire
Browning, they still refuse to forgive Swinburne,
whose crude earlier poems brought the lust of the
flesh to the edge of a grossness too palpable to be
seductive, and from which his riper manhood has
departed altogether. The elder poet, from first to
last, has appeared to defend the elective affinities
against impediments of law, theology, or social rank.
It is not my province to discuss the ethics of this
matter, but simply to speak of it as a fact.
It will not do to fall back upon Browning's protest,
in the note to his " Dramatic Lyrics," that these are
"so many utterances of so many imaginary persons,"
and not his own. For when he returns persistently
to a certain theme, illustrates it in divers ways, and
heaps the coals of genius upon it till it breaks out
into flame, he ceases to be objective and reveals his
secret thought. No matter how conservative his habit,
he is to be judged, like any artist, by his work ; and
in all his poems we see a taste for the joys and sor
rows of a free, irresponsible life, like that of the
Italian lovers, of students in their vagrant youth, or
of Consuelo and her husband upon the windy heath.
Above all, he tells us :

iin a balcony:

331

"Thou shalt know, those arms once curled


About thee, what we knew before,
How love is the only good in the world."
"In a Balcony" is the longest and finest of his emo "In a Bal
tional poems : a dramatic episode, in three dialogues, cony."
the personages of which talk at too great length,
although, no doubt, many and varied thoughts flash
through the mind at supreme moments, and it is
Browning's custom to put them all upon the record.
How clearly the story is wrought ! What exquisite
language, and passion triumphant over life and death !
Mark the transformation of the lonely queen, in the
one radiant hour of her life that tells her she is be
loved, and makes her an angel of goodness and light.
She barters power and pride for love, clutching at
this one thing as at Heaven, and feels
" How soon a smile of God can change the world."
Then comes the transformation, upon discovery of
the cruel deceit, her vengeance and despair. The
love of Constance, who for it will surrender life, and
even Norbert's hand, is more unselfish ; never more
subtly, perhaps, than in this poem, has been illus
trated Byron's epigram :
" In her first passion, woman loves her lover :
In all the others, all she loves is love."
Here, too, is the profound lesson of the whole, that
a word of the man Norbert's simple, blundering truth
would have prevented all this coil. But the poet is
at his height in treating of the master passion :
"Remember, I (and what am I to you?)
Would give up all for one, leave throne, lose life,
Do all but just unlove him ! he loves me."

332

ROBERT BROWNING.
With fine abandonment he makes the real worth
so much more than the ideal :
"We live, and they experiment on life,
These poets, painters, all who stand aloof
To overlook the farther. Let us be
The thing they look at!"
But in a large variety of minor lyrics it is hinted
that our instincts have something divine about them ;
that, regardless of other obligations, we may not dis
obey the inward monition. A man not only may for
sake father and mother and cleave to his wife ; but,
forsake his wife and cleave to the predestined one.
No sin like repression ; no sting like regret ; no
requital for the opportunity slighted and gone by.
In " The Statue and the Bust," a typical piece,
had the man and woman seen clearly " the end " of
life, though " a crime," they had not so failed of
it:
"If you choose to play is my principle!
Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will !
"The counter our lovers staked was lost
As surely as if it were lawful coin :
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
"Was, the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin.
Though the end in sight was a crime, I say.".
" A Light Woman " turns upon the right of every
soul, however despicable, to its own happiness, and
to freedom from the meddling of others. The words
of many lyrics, attesting the boundless liberty and
sovereignty of love, are plainly written, and to say
the lesson is not there is to ape those commentators

POETRY ADDRESSED TO HIS WIFE.

333

who discover an allegorical meaning in each Scrip


tural
Bothtext
Browning
that interferes
and hiswith
wife their
possessed
specialbycreeds.
nature a
W,dded
radical gift for sifting things to the core, an heroic poets.
disregard of every conventional gloss or institution.
They were thoroughly mated in this respect, though
one may have outstripped the other in exercise of the
faculty. Their union, apparently, was so absolute
that neither felt any need of fuller emotional life.
The sentiment of Browning's passional verse, there
fore, is not the outgrowth of perceptions sharpened
by restraint. The poetry addressed to his wife is, if
anything, of a still higher order. He watches her
" Reading by firelight, that great brow
And the spirit-small hand propping it
Mutely my heart knows how
" When, if I think but deep enough,
You are wont to answer, prompt as rhyme " ;
and again and again addresses her in such lines as
these :
" God be thanked, the meanest of his creatures
Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with,
One to show a woman when he loves her.
This to you yourself my moon of poets !
Ah, but that's the world's side there's the wonder
Thus they see you, praise you, think they know you."
In fine, not only his passional lyrics, but all the
poems relating to the wedded love in which his own
deepest instincts were thoroughly gratified, are the
most strong and simple portion of his verse, show
ing that luminous expression is still the product of
high emotion, as some conceive the diamond to have
been crystallized by the electric shock.

334

ROBERT BROWNING.

VII.
Many of the lyrics in the volume of 1864 are so
thin and faulty, and so fail to carry out the author's
intent, the one great failure in art, as sadly to
illustrate the progressive ills which attend upon a
wrong method.
The gift still remained, however, for no work dis
plays more of ill-diffused power and swift application
than Browning's longest poem, The Ring and the Book.
It has been succeeded rapidly, within five years, by
other works, the whole almost equalling, in bulk,
the entire volume of his former writings. Their special
quality is affluence : limitless wealth of language and
illustration. They abound in the material of poetry.
A poet should condense from such star-dust the orbs
which give light and outlast time. As in " Sordello,"
Browning again fails to do this ; he gives us his
first draught, the huge, outlined block, yet to be
reduced to fit proportions, the painter's sketch,
blotchy and too obscure, and of late without the
early freshness.
Nevertheless, " The Ring and the Book " is a won
derful production, the extreme of realistic art, and
considered, not without reason, by the poet's admi
rers, to be his greatest work. To review it would
require a special chapter, and I have said enough
with respect to the author's style in my citation of
his less extended poems; but as the product of sheer
intellect this surpasses them all. It is the story of a
tragedy which took place at Rome one hundred and
seventy years ago. The poet seems to have found
his thesis in an old book, part print, part manu
script, bought for eight pence at a Florence stall:

'THE RING AND THE BOOK:


"A book in shape, but, really, pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since."
The versified narrative of the child P^fmpilia's
0
sale to
Count Guido, of his cruelty and violence, of her
rescue by a young priest, the pursuit, the lawful
separation, the murder by Guido of the girl and her
putative parents, the trial and condemnation of the
murderer, and the affirmation of his sentence by the
Pope, all this is made to fill out a poem of twentyone thousand lines ; but these include ten different
versions of the same tale, besides the poet's prelude,
in which latter he gives a general outline of it, so
that the reader plainly may understand it, and the
historian
The chapters
then bewhich
privileged
contain
to wander
the statements
as he choose.
of the
priest-lover and Pampilia are full of tragic beauty and
emotion ; the Pope's soliloquy, though too prolonged,
is a wonderful piece of literary metempsychosis ; but
the speeches of the opposing lawyers cany realism
to an intolerable, prosaic extreme. Each of these
books, possibly, should be read by itself, and not too
steadily nor too often. Observe that the author, in
elevated passages, sometimes forgets his usual manner
and breaks into the cadences of Tennyson's style ; for
instance, the apostrophe to his dead wife, beginning
" O lyric Love, half angel and half bird,
And all a wonder and a wild desire ! "
But elsewhere he still leads the reaction from the
art-school. His presentations are endless : in his ar
chitecture the tracery, scroll-work, and multifoil be
wilder us and divert attention from the main design.
Yet in presence of the changeful flow of his verse,

335

336

ROBERT BROWNING.
and the facility wherewith he records the speculations
of his various characters, we are struck with wonder.
" The Ring and the Book " is thus far imaginative,
and a rhythmical marvel, but is it a stronghold of
poetic art ? As a whole, we cannot admit that it is ;
and yet the thought, the vocabulary, the imagery, the
wisdom, lavished upon this story, would equip a score
of ordinary writers, and place them beyond danger of
neglect.
Balaustiori's Adventure, the poet's next volume, dis
plays a tranquil beauty uncommon in his verse, and
it seems as if he sought, after his most prolonged
effort, to refresh his mind with the sweetness and
repose of Greek art. He treads decently and rever
ently in the buskins of Euripides, and forgets to be
garrulous in his chaste semi-translation of the Alcestis.
The girl Balaustion's prelude and conclusion are very
neatly turned, reminding us of Landor ; nor does the
book, as a whole, lack the antique flavor and the
blue, laughing freshness of the Trinacrian sea.
What shall be said of Fifine at the Fair, or of that
volume, the last but one of Browning's essays, which
not long ago succeeded it? Certainly, that they ex
hibit his steadfast tendency to produce work that is
less and less poetical. There is no harder reading
than the first of these poems; no more badly chosen,
rudely handled measure than the verse selected for
it; no pretentious work, from so great a pen, has less
of the spirit of grace and comeliness. It is a pity
that the author has not somewhat accustomed himself
to write in prose, for he insists upon recording all of
his thoughts, and many of them are essentially pro
saic. Strength and subtilty are not enough in art :
beauty, either of the fair, the terrible, or the gro

HIS LATER PRODUCTIONS.


tesque, is its justification, and a poem that repels at
the outset has
15 small excuse for being. v " Prince
Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Savior of Society," is another
of Browning's experiments in vivisection, the subject
readily made out to be the late Emperor of the
French. It is longer than " Bishop Blougram's Apol
ogy," but compare it therewith, and we are forced to
perceive a decline in terseness, virility, and true im
aginative power.
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country; or, Turf and Towers,
what exasperating titles Browning puts forth ! this
time under the protection of Miss Thackeray. That
the habit is inbred, however, is proved by some ab
surd invention whenever it becomes necessary to coin
a proper name. After " Bluphocks " and " Gigadibs,"
we have no right to complain of the title of his
Breton romance. The poem itself contains a melo
dramatic story, and hence is less uninteresting than
" Fifine." But to have such a volume, after Brown
ing's finer works, come out with each revolving year,
is enough to extort from his truest admirers the
cry of "Words! Words! Words!" Much of the
detail is paltry, and altogether local or temporal, so
that it will become inexplicable fifty years hence.
There is a constant " dropping into " prose ; more
over, whole pages of wandering nonsense are called
forth by some word, like " night-cap " or " fiddle,"
taken for a text, as if to show the poet's mastery of
verse-building and how contemptible he can make it.
Once he would have put the narrative of this poem
into a brief dramatic sketch that would have had
beauty and interest. " My Last Duchess " is a more
genuine addition to literature than the two hundred
pages of this tedious and affected romance. A pro-

337

"Prince
HokenstielSckwangau."

"Red Cot
ton NightCap Coun
try," 1873-

Decline in
poetic value.

338

ROBERT BROWNING.
longed career has not been of advantage to the
reputation of Browning : his tree was well-rooted and
reached a sturdy growth, but the yield is too profuse,
of a fruit that still grows sourer from year to year.
Nevertheless, this poet, like all men of genius, has
happy seasons in which, by some remarkable per
formance, he seems to renew his prime. Aristopha
nes' Apology continues the charm of " Balaustion's
Adventure," to which poem it is a sequel. What I
have said of the classical purity and sweetness of
the earlier production will apply to portions of " the
last adventure of Balaustion," which also includes
" a transcript from Euripides." Besides, it displays
the richness of scholarship, command of learned de
tails, skill in sophistry and analysis, power to recall,
awaken, and dramatically inform the historic past, in
all which qualifications this master still remains un
equalled by any modern writer, even by the most
gifted and affluent pupil of his own impressive school.

VIII.
A fair estimate of Browning may, I think, be de
duced from the foregoing review of his career. It
is hard to speak of one whose verse is a metrical
paradox. I have called him the most original and
the most unequal of living poets ; he continually
descends to a prosaic level, but at times is elevated
to the Laureate's highest flights. Without realizing
the proper functions of art, he nevertheless sympa
thizes with the joyous liberty of its devotees; his life
may be conventional, but he never forgets the Latin
Quarter, and often celebrates that freedom in love
and song which is the soul of BeVanger's

LA IV AND LA WLESSNESS IN ART.

339

" Dans un grenier qu'on est bien a vingt ans."


Then, too, what working man of letters does not thank A truefelloiu-craftshim when he says,
" But you are of the trade, my Puccio !
You have the fellow-craftsman's sympathy.
There 's none knows like a fellow of the craft
The all unestimated sum of pains
I
That go to a success the world can see."
He is an eclectic, and will not be restricted in his
themes ; on the other hand, he gives us too gross a
mixture of poetry, fact, and metaphysics, appearing
to have no sense of composite harmony, but to revel
in arabesque strangeness and confusion. He has a
barbaric sense of color and lack of form. Striving
against the trammels of verse, he really is far less a
master of expression than others who make less re
sistance. We read in " Pippa Passes " : " If there
should arise a new painter, will it not be in some
such way by a poet, now, or a musician (spirits who
have conceived and perfected an Ideal through some
other channel), transferring it to this, and escaping
our conventional roads by pure ignorance of them ? "
This is the Pre-Raphaelite idea, and, so far, good ;
but Browning's fault is that, if he has "conceived," he
certainly has made no effort to " perfect " an Ideal.
And here I wish to say, and this is something
which, soon or late, every thoughtful poet must dis
cover, that the structural exigencies of art, if one
adapts his genius to them, have a beneficent reaction
upon the artist's original design. By some friendly
law they help the work to higher excellence, suggest
ing unthought-of touches, and refracting, so to speak,
the single beam of light in rays of varied and delight
ful beauty.

Rich, yet
barbaric
taste.

The limits
offreedom
in art :

Theirbenefi
cent reaction
upon the art
ist's work.

34

ROBERT BROWNING.

The brakes which art applies to the poet's move


ment not only regulate, but strengthen its progress.
Ultimate re
sults oflaw. Their absence is painfully evinced by the mass of
Browning's unread verse. Works like " Sordello " and
lessness.
" Fifine," however intellectual, seem, like the removal
of the Malvern Hills, a melancholy waste of human
power.
When some romance like the last-named
comes from his pen, an addition in volume, not in
quality, to what he has done before, I feel a sad
ness like that engendered among hundreds of gloomy
folios in some black-letter alcove : books, forever closed,
over which the mighty monks of old wore out their
lives, debating minute points of casuistic theology,
though now the very memory of their discussions has
passed away. Would that Browning might take to
heart his own words, addressed, in "Transcendental
ism," to a brother-poet :
Whereas you please " toSong
speak
's our
these
art naked
:
thoughts
Instead of draping them in sights and sounds.
True thoughts, good thoughts, thoughts fit to treasure up!
But why such long prolusion and display,
Such turning and adjustment of the harp ?
But here 's your fault ; grown men want thought, you think ;
Thought 's what they mean by verse, and seek in verse :
Boys seek for images and melody,
Men must have reason, so you aim at men.
Quite otherwise ! "
Browning's
Incidentally we have noted the distinction between
minute dra
the
drama of Browning and that of the absolute
matic in
sight.
kind, observing that his characters reflect his own
mental traits, and that their action and emotion are
of small moment compared with the speculations to
which he makes them all give voice. Still, he has

ULTIMATE STANDING AS A POET.


dramatic insight, and a minute power of reading other
men's hearts. His moral sentiment has a potent and
subtile quality : through his early poems he really
founded a school, and had imitators, and, although
of his later method there are few, the younger poets
whom he has most affected very naturally began work
by carrying his philosophy to a startling yet perfectly
logical extreme.
Much of his poetry is either very great or very
poor. It has been compared to Wagner's music, and
entitled the "poetry of the future "; but if this be just,
then we must revise our conception of what poetry
really is. The doubter incurs the contemptuous en
mity of two classes of the dramatist's admirers : first,
of the metaphysical, who disregard considerations of
passion, melody, and form ; secondly, of those who
are sensitive to their master's failings, but, in view of
his greatness, make it a point of honor to defend
them. That greatness lies in his originality ; his
error, arising from perverseness or congenital defect,
is the violation of natural and beautiful laws. This
renders his longer poems of less worth than his lyri
cal studies, while, through avoidance of it, produc
tions, differing as widely as "The Eve of St. Agnes"
and " In Memoriam,'' will outlive " The Ring and the
Book." In writing of Arnold I cited his own quota
tion of Goethe's distinction between the dilettanti, who
affect genius and despise art, and those who respect
their calling though not gifted with high creative power.
Browning escapes the limitations of the latter class,
but incurs the reproach visited upon the former; and
by his contempt of beauty, or inability to surely ex
press it, fails of that union of art and spiritual power
which always characterizes a poet "entirely great."

341

The "poetry
ofthefu
ture."

What con
stitutes true
greatness in
art.

LATTER-DAY
CHAPTER
SINGERS.
X.

ROBERT BUCHANAN. DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.


WILLIAM MORRIS.
I.
THROUGHOUT the recent poetry of Great Brit
ain a new departure is indicated, and there are
signs that the true Victorian era has nearly reached
a close. To speak more fully, we approach the end
of that time in which although a composite school
has derived its models from all preceding forms
the idyllic method, as represented by Tennyson, upon
the whole has prevailed, and has been more success
ful than in earlier times, and than contemporary
efforts in the higher scale of song.
All periods are transitional ; yet it may be said
that the calling of the British poets, during the last
fifteen years, has been a " struggle," not so much for
recognition, as for the vital influence which consti
tutes a genuine "existence." The latter-day singers,
who bear a special relation to the immediate future,
are like those priests of the Sun, who, on hills over
looking the temples of strange gods, and above the
tumult of a hostile nation, tend the sacred fire, in
presence of their band of devotees, and wait for the
coming of a fairer day. Not that the blood of Eng

A CONFLICT OF INTERESTS.
lishmen is more frigid, and their wants more sordid,
than of old. The time is sufficiently imaginative.
Love of excitement, the most persistent of human
motives, is strong as ever. But the sources are vari
ous which now supply to the imagination that stimu
lus for which the new generation otherwise might
resort to poetry. It is an age of journalism ; all the
acts of all the world are narrated by the daily press.
It is, we have seen, a time of criticism and scholar
ship, similar to the Alexandrian period of Greek
thought. It is the very noontide of imaginative work
in prose ; and so largely have great novelists sup
planted the poets in general regard, that annalists
designate the Victorian period as the " age of prose
romance." Finally, and notably within the last dec
ade, readers have been confronted with those won
ders of science which have a double effect, destroy
ing the old poetic diction and imagery, and elevating
the soul with beauty and sublimity beyond anything
proffered by verse of the idyllic kind. The poets
especially Tennyson, in his recognition of modern
science and the new theology have tried to meet
the exigency, but their efforts have been timid and
hardly successful. Their art, though noble and re
fined, rarely has swayed the multitude, or even led
the literary progress of the time, that which verse
was wont to do in the great poetic epochs. Year by
year these adverse conditions have been more se
verely felt. To the latest poets, I say, the situation
is so oppressive that there is reason to believe it
must be near an end, and hence we see them striv
ing to break through and out of the restrictions that
surround them.
Where is the point of exit? This is the problem

343

Their em
barrass
ments.

C/>. " Poets


ofA merica": p.
437-

344

LA TTER-DA Y SINGERS.
which, singly or in groups, they are trying, perhaps
unconsciously, to solve. Some return to a purely
natural method, applying it to scenes whose fresh
ness and simplicity may win attention ; others with
draw to the region of absolute art, and by new and
studied forms of constructive beauty gratify their own
taste, and at least secure a delight in labor which,
of itself, is full compensation. Some have applied
poetic investigation to the spiritual themes which
float like shadows among the pillars and arches of
recent materialism ; finally, all are agreed in attempt
ing to infuse with more dramatic passion the overcultured method of the day.
In this last endeavor I am sure their instinct is
right. Modern art has carried restraint and breeding
below the level of repose. Poetry, to recover its
station, must shake off its luxurious sleep : the Phi
listines are upon it. It must stimulate feeling, arouse
to life, love, and action, before there can be a true
revival of its ancient power.
It would be invidious to lay any stress upon the
fact that the body of recent English verse is supplied
by those smaller lyrists, who, the poet tells us, never
weary of singing the old eternal song. Socialists
avow that Nature is unerring in the distribution of
her groups. Among a thousand men are so many
natural farmers, so many mechanics, a number of
scholars, two or three musicians, a single philan
thropist, it may be. But we search groups of a hun
dred thousand for a tolerable poet, and of a million
for a good one. The inspired are in the proportion
of diamonds to amethysts, of gold to iron. If, in the
generation younger than Tennyson and the Brown
ings, we discover three or four singers fit to aspire

REPRESENTATIVE NAMES.
and lead the way, especially at this stage of compe
tition with science and prose romance, there surely is
no need that we should wholly despair.
I have spoken elsewhere of the minor poets, and of
those specialists who excel in dialect-writing and so
ciety-verse, and have derived from their miscellaneous
productions an idea of the tone and fashion of the
period. As we seek for those who are distinguished,
not only by power and individuality, but by the impor
tance of their accomplished work, three or four, at
most, require specific attention. Another year, and
the position may be changed ; for poets are like com
ets in the suddenness of their appearance, and too
often also in brief glory, hyperbolic orbit, and abrupt
departure to be seen no more.
Of the four whose names most readily occur to the
mind, Buchanan, Rossetti, Morris, and Swinburne,
the first holds an isolated position ; the remaining
three, though their gifts are entirely distinctive, have
an appearance of association through sympathy in
taste or studies, so that, while to classify them as
a school might be unphilosophical, to think of one is
to recall the others. Such a group is not without
precedent. It is not for this cause that I include the
thiee under one review ; if it were so, Buchanan, from
his antagonistic position, well might be placed else
where. The fact is, that all are latter-day poets, and
need not object to meet on the footing of guests in
the house of a common friend. With the exception of
Rossetti, these later poets are alike in at least one
respect : they are distinguished from the Farringford
school by a less condensed, more affluent order of
work, are prodigal of their verse, pouring it out in
youth, and flooding the ear with rhythm. There is
iS*

345

346

ROBERT BUCHANAN.
no nursing of couplets, and so fruitful a yield may be
taken as the evidence of a rich and fertile soil.

II.
Robert BuJudged either by his verse or by his critical writings,
berTbtSctt- Robert Buchanan seems to have a highly developed
ld^"g' poetic temperament, with great earnestness, strength
of conviction, and sensitiveness to points of right and
wrong. Upon the whole, he represents, possibly more
than any other rising man, the Scottish element in
literature, an element that stubbornly retains its char
acteristics, just as Scotch blood manages to hold its
own through many changes of emigration, intermar
riage, or long descent. The most prosaic Scotsman
has something of the imagination and warmth of feel
ing that belong to a poet; the Scottish minstrel has
the latter quality, at least, to an extent beyond ordi
nary comprehension. He wears his heart upon his
sleeve ; his naivete" and self-consciousness subject him
to charges of egotism ; he has strong friends, but
makes as many enemies by tilting against other peo
ple's convictions, and by zealous advocacy of his own.
His temperIt is difficult for such a man to confine himself to
pure art, and Buchanan is no exception to the rule.
He is a Scotsman all over, and not only in push and
aggressiveness, but, let me add, in versatility, in gen
uine love and knowledge of nature, and in his reli
gious aspiration. The latter does not manifest itself
through allegiance to any traditional belief, but through
a spirit of individual inquiry, resulting in speculations
which he advances with all the fervor of Knox or
Chalmers, and thus furnishes another illustration of
the saying that every Scot has a creed of his own.

A PUPIL OF WORDSWORTH.

347

Great Britain can well afford to tolerate the meta


physics of Scotland for the sake of her poetry. Bu
chanan's transcendentalism is mentioned here, because
he has made his verse its exponent, and thus, in his
chosen quest after the knowledge of good and evil, has
placed himself apart from the other poets of his time.
does
The
Thepoems
notlibrary
exhibit
areedition
accurately
not arranged
of histhewritings,
progress
in the recently
order
of his of
growth.
issued,
their mg''
Hiswrit-

composition, but upon a system adapted to the au


thor's taste. In their perusal this is not the only
feature to remind us of Wordsworth, whose arbitrary
classification of his works is familiar to all. Both the
early and the later writings of Buchanan show that
much of his tutelage came from a youthful study of
the bard of Rydal Mount, and he thus took a bent
in a direction quite separate from that of the modern
art-school. What he gained in freedom he lost in
reserve, acquiring Wordsworth's gravest fault, the
habit of versifying every thought that comes to mind,
A useful mission of the art-school has been to correct
this tendency. Like Wordsworth, also, Buchanan is

influence
worihand
tluLke
school.

a natural sonneteer and idyllist, and he resembles the


whole Lake school in the Orphic utterance of his
opinions upon half the questions that fill the air.
Hence some notable mistakes and beliefs, subject
to revision ; hence, also, ill-conceived and spasmodic
work, like the " Napoleon Fallen " and " The Drama
of Kings," of which I believe that only a select
portion has been retained in a new edition of this
author's works.
Thus Robert Buchanan is one of the least restrained An isolated
andi most unequali ofr the
* younger poets ; yet he
, is to position.
be placed by himself on the ground of his decided

348

ROBERT BUCHANAN.

purpose and originality. What he lacks is the faculty


of restraint. Stimulated, it may be, by his quick suc
cess, he has printed a great quantity of verse since
the day, fourteen years ago, when David Gray and
himself first started for London. That portion which
is most carefully finished is, also, the freshest and
most original ; showing either that in his case the
labor lima is not thrown away, or else that, if the
ruggedness of certain pieces is its result, he should
have left them as they came from his brain. Of
course his early efforts were experiments in verse
" Underrather than new and sweet pipings of his own. Under
tones, >86o. jgn(s cons;S{;ec} chiefly of classical studies, a kind of
work, I should say, apart from his natural turn, and
in which he was not very successful. We do not
find the true classical spirit in " Pan," nor in " The
Last Song of Apollo," good as both these pieces are
in a certain way. " Polypheme's Passion," imitated
from Euripides and Theocritus, is nearer the mark.
The strength, precision, and beauty of the antique
are what evade him. After Keats, Landor, Tennyson,
and Arnold, his classicism is no real addition to work
of this kind in English poetry.
"idyls and
Five years later his Scottish idyls and legends
^ntl^rn," showed the touch and feeling of the real poet.
865.
They
almost introduced
unstudied, usand
to were
scenesaffecting,
and language
truthful,before
and
picturesque. His songs of Lowland superstition are
light with fancy, and sometimes musical as the chim
ing of glass bells. The Inverburn tales, in rhymedheroic and blank verse, were rightly named idyls.
They are exquisite pictures of humble life, more full
of dialogue and incident than Wordsworth's, broader
in treatment than Tennyson's ; in short, composed in

A FAITHFUL POET OF NATURE.


their author's own style, and transcripts of the man
ners and landscape which he best knew. Few poems
have more fairly deserved their welcome than " Willie
Baird," "Poet Andrew," "John" ("The English Hus
wife's Gossip "), and " The Widow Mysie." Buchanan
justly may be pronounced the most faithful poet of
Nature among the new men. He is her familiar, and
in this respect it would seem as if the mantle of Words
worth had fallen to him from some fine sunset or misty
height. He knows the country with that knowledge
which is gained only in youth. Like an American
poet, and like no British poet save himself, he knows
the hills and valleys, the woods and rippling troutstreams. An artist is apt to underrate his special gift.
Buchanan is said to place more value upon his townpoems ; yet they do not affect us as these rural studies
do, and the persons he best describes are those found
in bucolic life. His four " Pastoral Pictures " rank
with the pastorals of Bryant and Wordsworth in being
so imaginative as to have the charm of more dramatic
poems. " A Summer Pool " and " Up the River " are
full of excellence. The following lines, taken almost
at random, show what poetic beauty can be reached
in purely descriptive verse :
"The air is hotter here. The bee booms by
With honey-laden thigh,
Doubling the heat with sounds akin to heat ;
And like a floating flower the butterfly
Swims upward, downward, till its feet
Cling to the hedge-rows white and sweet.
The sunlight fades on mossy rocks,
And on the mountain-sides the flocks
Are spilt like streams; the highway dips
Down, narrowing to the path where lambs

3SO

ROBERT BUCHANAN.
Lay to the udders of their dams
Their soft and pulpy lips.
The hills grow closer; to the right
The path sweeps round a shadowy bay,
Upon whose slated fringes white
And crested wavelets play.
All' else is still. But list, O list!
Hidden by bowlders and by mist,
A shepherd whistles in his fist;
From height to height the far sheep bleat
In answering iteration sweet.
Sound, seeking Silence, bends above her,
Within some haunted mountain grot;
Kisses her, like a trembling lover,
So that she stirs in sleep, but wakens not!"
As a writer of Scottish idyls, Buchanan was strictly
within his limitations, and secure from rivalry. There
is no dispute concerning a specialist, but a host will
rebuke the claims of one who aims at universal suc
cess, and would fain, like the hard-handed man of
Athens, play all parts at once. The young poet, how
ever, having so well availed himself of these homescenes, certainly had warrant for attempting other
labors than those of a mere genre painter in verse.
He took from the city various subjects for his maturer
work, treating these and his North-coast pictures in
a more realistic fashion, discarding adornment, and
letting his art teach its lesson by fidelity to actual
life. A series of the lighter city-poems, suggested by
early experiences in town, and entitled "London Lyr
ics" in the edition of 1874, is not in any way remark
able. The lines " To the Luggie " are a more poetical
tribute to his comrade, Gray, than is the lyric "To
David in Heaven." For poems of a later date he
made studies from the poor of London and it required
some courage to set before his comfortable readers

'LONDON POEMS:

351

the wretchedness of the lowest classes, to introduce


their woful phantoms at the poetic feast. " Nell "
and " Liz " have the unquestionable power of truth ;
they are faithfully, even painfully, realistic. The metre
is purposely irregular, that nothing may cramp the
language or blur the scene. " Nell " the plaint of
a creature whose husband has just been hanged for
murder, and who, over the corpse of her still-born
babe, tells the story of her misery and devotion is
stronger than its companion-piece ; but each is the
striking expression of a woman's anguish put in rug
ged and impressive verse. " Meg Blane," among the
North-coast pieces, is Buchanan's longest example of
a similar method applied to a rural theme. I do him
no wrong by not quoting from any one of these pro
ductions, whose force lies in their general effect, and
which are composed in a manner directly opposite to
that of the elaborate modern school.
As a presentment of something new and strong, Their mer
its and de
these are remarkable poems. Nevertheless, and grant fects.
ing that propagandism is a legitimate mission of art,
does not that poetry teach the most effectually which
is the most attractive to a poet's audience ? Have
the great evangelists kept their hearers in an exalted
state of anguish without frequent intermissions of
relief? Hogarth, in his realistic pictures of low life,
followed nature, and made their wretchedness endur
able by seizing upon every humorous or grotesque
point that could be made. " Nell," " Liz," and " Meg
Blane " harrow us from first to last ; there is no re
mission,
uous ; we
the
are poet
willing
is inexorable;
to accept these
the pain
lessons,
is contin
but
would be spared from others of the same cast.
Better as a poem, more tempting in its graphic

352

ROBERT BUCHANAN.
pictures of coast-life and brave sailorly forms, more
pathetic as a narrative, and told in verse at once
sturdier and more sweet, is that dramatic and beauti
ful idyl, " The Scairth o' Bartle," in which we find a
union of naturalism and realism at their best. The
lesson is just as impressive as that of " Meg Blane,"
and the verse how tender and strong! I think that
other poets, of the rhetorical sort, might have written
the one, while Buchanan alone could have so ren
dered the Scottish-sailor dialect of the other, and
have given to its changeful scenery and detail those
fine effects which warrant us in placing "The Scairth
o' Bartle" at the high-water mark of the author's
North-coast poems.
Among other realistic studies, "Edward Crowhurst "
and " Jane Lawson " will repay attention. That this
poet has humor of the Tam-o'-Shanter kind is shown
in the racy sketch of Widow Mysie, and by the Eng
lish and Scottish Eclogues. He also has done good
work after Browning's lighter manner, of which " De
Berny " (a life-like study of a French refugee in
London) and " Kitty Kemble " may be taken as ex
amples. The latter, by its flowing satire, reminds us
of Swift, but is mellowed with the kindness and char
ity which redeem from cynicism the wit of a true
poet. The ease and grace of these two poems are
very noticeable.
It is in another direction that Buchanan has made
his decided revolt against the modes and canons of
the period. The Book of Orm invites us to a spirit
ual region, where fact and materialism cannot hamper
his imaginings. To many it will seem that, in tak
ing metaphysics with him, he but exchanges one set
of hindrances for another. It is a natural outcome

' THE BOOK OF ORM.'


of his Scottish genius that he should find himself
discussing the nature of evil, and applying mysticism
to the old theological problems. The " Book " itself
is hard to describe, being a study of the meaning of
good and evil, as observed through a kind of Celtic
haze ; and even the author, to explain his own pur
pose, resorts to the language of a friendly critic, who
pronounces it "a striking attempt to combine a quasiOssianic treatment of nature with a philosophy of
rebellion rising into something like a Pantheistic
vision of the necessity of evil." The poet himself
adds that to him its whole scope is "to vindicate the
ways of God to Man [stc\." He thus brings the
great instance of Milton to sustain his propagandism,
but while poetry, written with such intent, may be
sensuous, and often is passionate, it never can be
entirely simple. The world has well agreed that
what is fine in " Paradise Lost " is the poetry ; what
is tiresome, the theology - yet the latter certainly fur
nished the motive of England's greatest epic. In
adopting a theme which, after all, is didactics under
a spiritual glamour, Buchanan has chosen a distinc
tive ground. The question is, What sort of art is the
result ? Inevitably a strange mixture of poetry and
prose, the relative proportions varying with the flow
of the poet's imagination. " The Book of Orm " is
largely made up of vague aspiration, rhetoric, padded
and unsatisfactory verse. It contains, withal, very
fine poetry, of which one or two specimens are as
good as anything the author has composed. A por
tion of the work has a trace of the weird quality to
be found in nearly all of Blake's pictures, and in most
of his verse. The " Soul and Flesh," the " Flower of
the World," and the " Drinkers of Hemlock " are thus
w

353

Transcenjadungtim-

but fine lure


andthere-

354

ROBERT BUCHANAN.
characterized. Two episodes are prominent among
the rest. "The Dream of the World without Death"
is a strong and effective poem : a vision of the time
when
"There were no kisses on familiar faces,
No weaving of white grave-clothes, no lost pondering
Over the still wax cheeks and folded fingers.
"There was no putting tokens under pillows,
There was no dreadful beauty slowly fading,
Fading like moonlight softly into darkness.
"There were no churchyard paths to walk on, thinking
How near the well-beloved ones are lying.
There were no sweet green graves to sit and muse on,
"Till grief should grow a summer meditation,
The shadow of the passing of an angel,
And sleeping should seem easy, and not cruel.
"Nothing but wondrous parting and a blankness."

Of a still higher order is " The Vision of the Man


Accurst," which is marked by fine imagination, though
conceits and artificial phrases somewhat lessen its
effect. It seems to me the poet's strongest produc
tion thus far, and holds among his mystical pieces
the position of " The Scairth o' Bartle " among the
Scottish tales.
In applying the Orphic method to contemporary
Fallen " and
politics
he makes a failure akin to that of Shelley
the "Drama
of Kings,'1* in "The Revolt of Islam." Having perceived the
87..
weakness of his poems upon the Franco-German war,
he gives them to us under new titles, and largely
pruned or otherwise remodelled. Much of the politi
cal verse is written in a mouthing manner, inferior
to his narrative style. The aspiration of Shelley's

HIS VERSATILITY.

355

writings doubtless went far to sustain the melody


that renders them so exquisite. Whatever Buchanan's
mission may be, it detracts from, rather than en
hances, his genius as a poet. In reformatory lyrics
and sonnets he does not rise so very far above the
level of Massey and other spasmodic rhymesters. An
American, living in a country where every mechanic
is the peer of Buchanan as a reformer, and where
poetry is considerably scarcer than "progress," is
likely to care not so much for a singer's theories as
for the quality of his song.
Buchanan's versatility, and desire to obtain a hear
ing in every province of his art, have impelled him
to some curious ventures, among which are two ro
mantic volumes upon American themes, published
anonymously, but now acknowledged as his own. St.
Abe and White Rose and Red have been commended
for fidelity of local color and diction, but readers to
the manner born will assure the author that he has
succeeded only in being faithful to a British ideal of
American frontier life. To compensate us, we have
some thin poetry in his Maine romance, while in the
Salt Lake extravaganza I can find none at all. His
critical prose-writings are marked by eloquence and
vigor, but those of a polemical order have, I should
opine, entailed upon him more vexation than profit.
He is said to figure creditably as a playwright, "The
Witch-Finder " and " The Madcap Prince " having
met with success upon the London stage.
As a result of his impulse to handle every theme
that occurs to him, and to essay all varieties of style,
much of his poetry, even after the winnowing to
Faults of
which it has been subjected, is not free from sterile judgment
and prosaic chaff. A lesser fault is the custom of and style.

356

ROBERT BUCHANAN.
handicapping his pieces with affected preludes, and
his volumes with metrical statements of their purpose,
barbarisms taken from a period when people did
not clearly see that Art must stand without crutches.
Occasionally a theme which he selects, such as the
description from Heine's " Reisebilder" of the vanish
ing of the old gods, is more of a poem than any
verses that can be set to it. Nor do we care for
such an excess of self-annunciation as is found in
the prelude to " Bexhill." Faults of style are less
common, yet he does not wholly escape the affecta
tions of a school with which he is in open conflict.
Still, he can be artistic to a degree not exceeded in
the most careful poetry of his time. "The Ballad of
Judas Iscariot," which he has done well to place at
the opening of his collection, is equal in finish to
anything written since "The Rime of the Ancient
Mariner," and approaches that poem in weird impressiveness and power. Among his sonnets, those of
the Coruisken series, sustained by lofty feeling and
noble diction, are without doubt the best.
In conclusion, it would appear that his work of the
last five years is not an advance upon his Scottish
idyls, and that a natural and charming poet has been
retarded by conceiving an undue sense of his inspi
ration as a seer, a mystic, a prophet of the future.
Moreover, like Southey, Buchanan has somewhat too
carefully nursed his reputation. The sibyls confided
their leaves to the winds, and knew that nothing
which the gods thought worth preserving could be
effaced by the wanton storm. His merits lie in his
originality, earnestness, and admirable understanding
of nature, in freedom of style and strength of gen
eral effect. His best poetry grows upon the reader.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.


He still is young, scarcely having begun the mature
creative period, and, if he will study the graces of
restraint, and cling to some department of art in
which he is easily foremost, should not fail of a new
and still more successful career.

III.
Rossetti is one of those men whose significant
position is not so much due to the amount of work
which they produce as to its quality, and to the prin
ciples it has suggested. Such leaders often are found,
and influence contemporary thought by the personal
magnetism that attracts young and eager spirits to
gather around them. Sometimes a man of this kind,
in respect to creative labor, is greater than his pro
ductions. But if Rossetti's special attitude has been
of more account than his poetry, it is not because
he lacks the power to equalize the two. He has
chosen to give his energies to a kindred art of ex
pression, for which his genius is no less decided.
Yet his influence as a poet, judging from his writ
ings, and from even a meagre knowledge of his life
and associates, seems to be radical and more or less
enduring.
A stream broadens as it flows. Already, in the
careers of Morris and Swinburne, we see the forms
of extension through which the indestructibility of
nature is secured for a specific mode of art. The
instinct is not so far wrong which connects these
poets with Rossetti, and calls the circle by his name.
Three men could not be more independent of one
another in their essential gifts ; yet there is some
common chain between them to which the clew most

357

358

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

likely was obtained first by Rossetti, he being the


eldest, and the first to seize it in his search after
beauty's underlying laws. It is true that Morris, a
comrade near his own age, dedicated a book of poe
try to him long before the artist had compiled a
volume of his own poems ; nevertheless, we gather
the idea that the conversation and presence of Ros
setti had a formative influence upon the author of
"The Earthly Paradise," as well as upon that younger
singer whose dramatic genius already has half deter' mined what is to be the poetic tendency of the era
now beginning. We turn to the young for confirma
tion of our views with regard to the immediate out
look ; for it is the privilege of youth to discern the
freshest and most potential style. A prophetic sen
sitiveness, wiser than the dulled experience of age,
unites it to the party of the future.
RecentfoeSince the master treatise of Lessing there has been
'artsofde- n0 question of the impassable barriers betwixt the
provinces of the artist and the poet. Poetry, however,
furnishes themes to the painter ; and of late, painting,
through study of elemental processes, has enriched
the field of poetry, to which Rossetti's contribution
is the latest, if not the greatest, and has the charm of
something rare that is brought to us from another
land. He was an early member of the Pre-Raphaelite
brotherhood in painting, Millais and Holman Hunt
being his most famous associates. He also has had
some connection with Morris in the decorative art
work to which the latter has been so enviably dePre-Raph- voted. The element which Rossetti's verse and bear"Z'e'aiHd
lnS have brought into English poetry holds to that
art the relation of Pre-Raphaelite painting and deco
ration to painting and decoration of the academic

PRE-RAPHAELITISM.
kind. As a figure-painter, his drawings, such as I
have seen, are far above the strictly realistic work
produced by acolytes of his order. The term real
ism constantly is used to cloak the mediocrity of
artists whose designs are stiff, barren, and grotesque,
the form without the soul. They deal with the
minor facts of art, unable to compass the major ; their
labor is scarcely useful as a stepping-stone to higher
things ; if it were not so unimaginative, it would have
more value as a protest against conventionalism and
a guide to something new. But Rossetti, a man of
genius, has lighted his canvas and his pages with a
quality that is more ennobling. He has discerned
the spirit of beauty, wandering within the confines of
a region whose landscape is visible, not to ground
lings, but to the poet's finer sight. Even his strictly
Pre-Raphaelite verse, odd and weird as it may at first
appear, is full of exaltation and lyrical power.
Such of his ballads as recall the Troubadour period
are no more realistic than the ballads of the idyllic
poets. They are studies of what the Pre-Chaucerian
minstrels saw, and partly result from use of their
materials. However rich and rare, they hold, in the
youth of the new movement, no more ' advanced posi
tion than that of Tennyson's " Oriana " and " The
Lady of Shalott" compared with his epic and philo
sophic masterpieces. This point is worth considera
tion. The Laureate's work of this kind was an effort,
in default of natural themes, to borrow something
from that old Romantic art which so long has passed
away as again to have the effect of newness.
Much of Rossetti's verse is of this sort, yet possess
ing a quality which shows that his genius, if fully ex
ercised, might lead him to far greater achievements

359

36o

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.


as an English poet. Consecrated, from his Italian
parentage, to learning, art, and song, reared in a
household over which the mediaeval spirit has brooded,
he is thoroughly at home among romantic themes
and processes, while a feeling like that of Dante exalts
the maturer portion of his emblematic verse.
In fact, he made his first appearance as a writer
with a volume of translations, The Early Italian
Poets, published in 1861. In the new edition (1874),
entitled " Dante and his Circle, with the Italian Poets
preceding him," more stress is laid upon the arrange
ment of the book. Dante, through the " Vita Nuova "
and many lyrics associated with his friends, is made
the luminous central figure of a group of poets who
shine partly by their own and partly by reflected
light. Sonnets, lyrics, and canzonets are given also
from more than forty additional writers, chiefly of an
earlier date, and the whole volume is edited with
patient learning and religious care. The time and
poetry are elucidated with a fidelity and beauty not
to be found in any English or Continental essays in
the same field. An exquisite spirit possesses the
workman and the work. An Anglo-Italian, he has a
double nature, like that of the enchanter who under
stood the speech of birds. Whatever original work he
might have produced with the same labor, it hardly
could be a greater addition to our literature than this
admirable transcript of Italy's most suggestive period
and song.
Rossetti's own poems are collected in a single vol
ume. Twoscore ballads, songs, and studies, with
thrice that number of sonnets, make up its contents ;
but there are not a few to maintain that here we
have "infinite riches in a little room." A reviewer

HIS COLLECTED POEMS.


is grateful to one who waits for songs that sing them
selves, and does not force us to examine long cantos
for a satisfactory estimate of his power. Some of
these poems were composed years ago, but the author
does not specify them, " as nothing has been included
which he believes to be immature." Conscientious
ness is a feature of this artist's work. A poet is not
to be measured by the quantity of his outpourings ; if
otherwise, what of Keats or Collins, and what of
Southey and Young ?
In""~
this collection,
then, I find no verse so realistic
16
as to be unimaginative; but I do find a quaint use
of old phraseology, and a revival of the early rhyth
mical accents. The result is a not unpleasant man
nerism, of a kind that is visible in the poetry of
Morris and Swinburne, and also crops out frequently
in recent miscellaneous verse. Besides enriching, like
Tennyson, our modern English by the revival of obso
lete yet effective Saxon and Norman words, Rossetti
adds to its flexibility by novel inversions and accent
ual endings. With regard to the diction, it should
be noted that such forms as " herseemed," though
here in keeping, would be unendurable in the verse
of an imitator. Throughout his poetry we discern a
finesse, a regard for detail, and a knowledge of color
and sound, that distinguish this master of the NeoRomantic school. His end is gained by simplicity
and sure precision of touch. He knows exactly what
effect he desires, and produces it by a firm stroke of
color, a beam of light, a single musical tone. Herein
he surpasses his comrades, and exhibits great tact
in preferring only the best of a dozen graces which
either of them would introduce. In terseness he cer
tainly is before them all.

361

Style and
language.

Precision
oftouch.

362
An earnest
and spirit
ual artist.

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.


We must accept a true poet for what he is, and be
thankful. Rossetti is not the man to attract a dul
lard. His quaintness must seem to many as "out
landish " as the speech and garments of Christian and
Faithful among the worldlings of Vanity Fair ; and
he is so indifferent to its outlandishness that some
may deem him wanting in sense and humor. But
he is too earnest, too absorbed in his own vision of
things spiritual and lovely, to look at matters from the
common point of view. To one willing to share his
feeling, and apt to recognize the inspiration of Diirer,
or William Blake, or John La Farge, the effect is not
to be gainsaid. The strangeness passes away with
j-a study of his poems. Yielding to their melody and
illumination, we are bathed in the rich colors of an
abbey-window and listen to the music of choristers
chanting from some skyey, hidden loft.
The melody is indisputably fine, whether from the
lips of the transfigured maiden, of whom he tells us
that, when
"She spoke through the still weather,
Her voice was like the voice the stars
Had when they sang together " ;
or the witch-music of Lilith, the wife of Adam :
" Not a drop of her blood was human,
But she was made like a soft, sweet woman."
It is difficult, however, to separate a single tone
from the current harmony. Light and color are worthy
of the music:
"Her eyes were deeper than the depth
Of waters stilled at even ;
She had three lilies in her hand,
And the stars in her hair were seven."

'THE- BLESSED DAMOZEL:

363

" Her hair, that lay along her back,


Was yellow, like ripe corn."
"The clear-ranged unnumbered heads
Bowed with their aureoles."
"She ceased.
The light thrilled toward her, filled
With angels in strong level flight."
Of Rossetti's lyrics in the Gothic or Romantic form, " The BUssed Damo
" The Blessed Damozel," from which I quote, is most zel."
widely known, and deserves its reputation. Nothing,
save great originality and beauty, could win us over
to its peculiar manner. It is full of imagination :
" Herseemed she scarce had been a day
One of God's choristers ;
The wonder was not yet quite gone
From that still look of hers " ;
"And the souls mounting up to God
Went by her like thin flames."
"I'll take his hand and go with him
To the deep wells of Kght,
We will step down as to a stream,
And bathe there in God's sight."
The spell of this poem, I think, lies in the feeling
that even in heaven the maiden, as on earth, is so
real, so Jiving, that
"her bosom must have made
The bar she leaned on warm " ;
and that her terrestrial love and yearning are more
to her than all the joys of Paradise. The poet,
moreover, in this brief, wild lyric, seems to have
conceived, like Dante, an apotheosis of some buried

364

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

mistress, regarded, it may be, with worship, but no


less with immortal passion and desire.
Ballads.
In three mediaeval ballads of another class there
is lyrical and dramatic power. I refer to "Troy
Town," "Eden Bower," and "Sister Helen." These,
with "Stratton Water" and "The Staff and Scrip,"
probably are as characteristic and successful as any
late revival of the ballad forms.
" A Last Confession " is a tragical Italian story, in
blank-verse, not unlike what Browning leaving out
Mhctiiavt- Rossetti's Italian song might write upon a similar
ous poems.
theme. " Dante at Verona " is a grave and earnest
poem, sustained with dignity throughout, yet I prefer
Dr. Parsons's lines " On a Bust of Dante," that
majestic lyric, the noblest of tributes to the great
Florentine in our own or any other tongue. At the
opposite extreme, and in a vein that differs from
Rossetti's other works, we have a curious and vivid
piece of realism entitled "Jenny." The poet moral
izes, with equal taste and feeling, and much picturesqueness, over a beautiful but ignorant girl of the
town, who no more than a child is aware of the
train of thought she has inspired. A striking passage
upon lust is specially effective and poetical.
Transia\ have said that as an Italian translator Rossetti is
the French, unsurpassed, and he is nearly as fine in renderings
from the old French, of which both Swinburne and
himself have made enthusiastic studies. Witness a
stanza from " The Ballad of Dead Ladies," Francois
Villon, 1450. The translator's inherent quaintness is
suited to his task :
"Tell me now in what hidden way is
Lady Flora the lovely Roman?

HIS MELODY AND IMAGINATION.


Where 's Hipparchia, and where is Thais,
Neither of them the fairer woman ?
Where is Echo, beheld of no man,
Only heard on river and mere,
She whose beauty was more than human ? . . . .
But where are the snows of yester-year ? "
His lyrical faculty is exquisite ; not often swift, but
chaste, and purely English.
" The -Spng_Qf the
Bower," a most tuneful love-chant, reminding us of
George Darley, is a good specimen of his melody,
while " The Stream's Secret " has more music in it
than any slow lyric that I now remember. Dramatic
power is indicated by true lyrical genius, and we are
not surprised to find Rossetti's poems surcharged
with it. As a sonneteer, also, he has no living equal.
Take the group written for pictures and read the
sonnet of " MajyMagdalene. " It is a complete dra
matic jpoem. The series belonging to "The House
ofLife," in finish, spontaneity, and richness of feel
ing, is such as this man alone can produce. Mrs.
Browning's sonnets -were the deathless revelation of
her own beautiful soul ; if these are more objective,
they are equally perfect in another way. Finally, the
imagination to which I have alluded is rarely absent
from JK.osseTt7s verse. His touches now are delicate,
and again have a broad sweep :
"As though mine image in the glass
Should tarry when myself am gone."
"How then should sound upon Life's darkening slope,
The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,
The wind of Death's imperishable wing ? "
In measuring his career as a poet, we at once per
ceive that he has moved in a somewhat narrow range
with respect to both the thought and method of his

365

366

. WILLIAM MORRIS.
compositions ; but that he approaches Tennyson in
simplicil5vjJurily,-and richness of tone. His dramatic
and lyrical powers are very marked, though not fully
developed ; if he had been restricted to verse as a
means of expression, he no doubt would have added
dal
greatly
Birthto" our
andEnglish
" Nuptial
song.
Sleep,"
Sonnets
and poems
like theso" pro
Brifoundly thoughtful as"" The Sea-Limits" and "The
Woodspurge," place him among his foremost contem
poraries. He has had a magnetic influence upon
those who come within his aureole. Should he com
plete " The House of Life " upon its original pro
jection, he will leave a monument of beauty more
lasting than the tradition of his presence. His verse
is compact of tenderness, emotional ecstasy, and poeticjire. The spirit of the master whose name he
bears clothes him as with a white garment. And we
should expect his associates to be humble lovers of
the beautiful, first of all, and through its ministry to
rise to the lustrous upper heaven of spiritual art.

IV.
It is but natural, then, that we should find in
William Morris a poet who may be described, to use
the phrase of Hawthorne, as an Artist of the Beautiful.
He delights in the manifestation of objective beauty.
Byron felt himself one with Nature. Morris is ab
sorbed in the loveliness of his romantic work, and
as an artist seems to find enchantment and content.
In this serenity of mood he possesses that which
has been denied to greater poets. True, he sings of
himself,

AN ARTIST OF THE BEAUTIFUL.


" Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time,
Why should I strive to set the crooked straight ? "
but what time could be to him more fortunate ?
Amid the problems of our day, and the uncertainty
as to what kind of art is to result from its confused
elements, there is at least repose in the enjoyment of
absolute beauty. There is safety in an art without a
purpose other than to refresh and charm. People
who labor in " six counties overhung with smoke "
are willing enough to forget them. Morris's proffer
of the means to this end could not have been more
timely. Keats had juster cause for dissatisfaction :
he could not know how eagerly men would turn to
his work when the grandiloquent period, in which he
found himself so valueless, should have worn itself
away. Besides, he never fairly attained his ideal.
To him the pursuit of Beauty, rather than the pos
session, was a passion and an appetite. He followed
after, and depicted her, but was not at rest in her
presence. Had Keats lived, had he lived to gain
the feeling of Morris, to pass from aspiration to at
tainment, and had his delicious poems been succeeded
by others, comparing with "Isabella" and "The Eve
of St. Agnes," as " The Earthly Paradise " compares
with " The Defence of Guenevere," then indeed the
world would have listened to a singer
" Such as it had
In the ages glad,
Long ago ! "
Morris appears to have been devoted from youth
to the service of the beautiful. He has followed
more than one branch of art, and enjoys, besides his
fame as a poet, a practical reputation as an original

367

368

WILLIAM MORRIS.
and graceful designer in decorative work of many
kinds. The present era, like the Venetian, and others
in which taste has sprung from the luxury of wealth,
seems to breed a class of handicraftsmen who are
adepts in various departments of creative art. Rossetti, Morris, Linton, Scott, Woolner, Hamerton, among
others, follow the arts of song or of design at will.
Doubtless the poet Morris, while making his unique
drawings for stained glass, wall-paper, or decorative
tile-work, finds a pleasure as keen as that of the
artist Morris in the construction of his metrical ro
mances. There is balm and recreation to any writer
in some tasteful pursuit which may serve as a foil to
that which is the main labor and highest purpose of
his life.
As for his poetry, it is of a sort which must be
delightful to construct: wholly removed from self,
breeding neither anguish nor disquiet, but full of soft
music and a familiar olden charm. So easeful to read,
it cannot be unrestful to compose, and to the maker
must be its own reward. He keeps within his selfallotted region ; if it be that of a lotos-eater's dream,
he is willing to be deluded, and no longing for the
real makes him "half sick of shadows." In this re
spect he is a wise, sweet, and very fortunate bard.
Some years ago, judging of Morris by The Defence
of Guenevere, and Other Poems, the only volume which
he then had printed, I wrote of him : " Never a slov
enly writer, he gives us pieces that repay close reading,
but also compel it, for they smack of the closet and
studio rather than of the world of men and women,
or that of the woods and fields. He, too, sings the
deeds of Arthur and Lancelot." Let me now say that
there is no purer or fresher landscape, more clearly

'THE DEFENCE OF GUENEVERE:


visible both to the author and the reader, than is to
be found everywhere in the course of Morris's later
volumes. Not only are his descriptions of every as
pect of Nature perfect, but he enters fully into the
effect produced by her changes upon our lives and
feelings. He sings of June,
" And that desire that rippling water gives
To youthful hearts to wander anywhere " ;
of the drowsy August languor,
" When men were happy, they could scarce tell why,
Although they felt the rich year slipping by."
A thousand similar examples may be selected from
his poems. But his first work was quite in sympathy
with that of Rossetti : an effort to disconnect poetry
from modern thought and purpose, through a return
not so much to nature as to models taken from the
age of ballad-romance. It was saturated with the
Pre-Chaucerian spirit. In mediaeval tone, color, and
somewhat rigid drawing, it corresponded to the missalwork style of the Pre-Raphaelites in art. The manner
was too studied to permit of swift movement or broad
scope ; the language somewhat ancient and obscure.
There is much that is fine, however, in the plumed
and heroic ballad, "Riding Together," and "The
Haystack in the Flood" is a powerful conception,
wrought out with historic truth of detail and grim
dramatic effect.
These thirty poems, fitly inscribed to Rossetti, made
up a work whose value somewhat depended upon its
promise for the future. The true Pre-Raphaelite is
willing to bury his own name in order to serve his
art ; to spend a life, if need be, in laying the groundi6
x

369

WILLIAM MORRIS.

37

wall upon which his successors can build a new tem


ple that shall replace the time-worn structure he has
helped to tear away. But, to a man of genius, the
higher
Morris's
service
second
often volume
is givenshowed
later inthat
his he
ownhad
career.
left
the shadows of ballad minstrelsy, and entered the
pleasant sunlight of Chaucer. After seven years of
silence The Life and Death of Jason was a surprise,
and was welcomed as the sustained performance of
a true poet. It is a narrative poem, of epic propor
tions, all story and action, composed in the rhymed
pentameter, strongly and sweetly carried from the
first book to the last of seventeen. In this produc
tion, as in all the works of Morris, in some respects
the most notable raconteur since the time of his
avowed master, Geoffrey Chaucer, the statement is
newly illustrated, that imaginative poets do not invent
their own legends, but are wise in taking them from
those historic treasuries of fact and fiction, the out
lines of which await only a master-hand to invest them
with living beauty. The invention of "Jason," for
instance, does not consist in the story of the Golden
Fleece, but in new effects of combination, and in the
melody and vigor of the means by which these old
adventurous Greeks again are made to voyage, sing,
love, fight, and die before us. Its author has a close
knowledge of antiquities. Here and there his method
is borrowed from Homer, as in the gathering of the
chiefs, which occupies the third book. Octosyllabic
songs are interspersed, such as that of Orpheus,
"O
Fullbitter
manysea,an tumultuous
ill is wrought
sea, by thee ! "
after which,

'THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JASON.'

371

"Then shouted all the heroes, and they drove


The good ship forth, so that the birds above,
With long white wings, scarce flew so fast as they."
These three lines convey an idea of the general dic
tion ; nor can any be selected from the ten thousand
which compose the work that do not show how well
our Saxon English is adapted for the transmission of
the Homeric spirit. The poem is fresh and stirring,
and the style befits the theme, though not free from
harshness and careless rhymes ; moreover, it must be
confessed that the reader often grows weary of the
prolonged tale. This is an Odyssean epic, but written
with continuity of effort; not growing of itself with
the growth of a nation, nor builded at long intervals
like the " Idyls of the King." The poet lacks variety.
His voice is in a single key, and, although it be
a natural one that does not tire the ear, we are con
tent as we close the volume, and heave a sigh of
satisfied appetite rather than of regret that the enter
tainment has reached an end.
In his learned taste for whatever is curious and
rare Morris has made researches among the Sagas
of Norse literature, especially those of Iceland. The
admirable translations which he made, in company
with E. Magnusson, from the Icelandic Grettis and
Volsunga Sagas, show how thoroughly every class of
work is fashioned by his hands, and illustrate the
wealth of the resources from which Jie obtained the
conception of his latest poem." The Story of Grettir
the Strong, and The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs,
1 He now is said to be engaged upon a lineal and literal
translation of Virgil, a work which he can hardly fail to exe
cute speedily and well.

Transla
tionsfrom
the Iceland
ic-, 1869.

372

WILLIAM MORRIS.
appeared in 1869 ; but in 1868, five years after the
completion of "Jason," the public had been delighted
with the early instalments of a charming production,
which, whatever he may accomplish hereafter, fairly
exhibits his powers in their most sustained and varied
form.
The plan of The Earthly Paradise was conceived
in a day that should be marked with a white stone,
since for this poet to undertake it was to complete
it. The effort was so sure to adjust itself to his genius
(which is epic rather than dramatic), that the only
question was one of time, and that is now a question
of the past. In this important work Morris reaches
the height of his success as a relator. His poems
always have been stories. Even the shortest ballads
in his^first book are upon themes from the old chron
icles. "The Earthly Paradise" has the universe of
fiction for a field, and reclothes the choicest and most
famous legends of Asia and Europe with the delicate
fabric of its verse. Greek and Oriental lore, the tales
of the Gesta Romanorum, the romance of the Nibelungen-Lied, and even the myths of the Eddas, con
tribute to this thesaurus of narrative song. All these
tales are familiar: many of a type from which John
Fiske or Miiller would prove their long descent, tra
cing them far as the " most eastern East " ; but never
before did they appear in more attractive shape, or
fall so musically from a poet's honeyed mouth. Their
fascination is beyond question. We listen to the
narrator, as Arabs before the desert fire hang upon
the lips of one who recites some legend of the good
Haroun. Here is a successor to Boccaccio and to
Chaucer. The verse, indeed, is exclusively Chauce
rian, of which three styles are used, the heroic, sestina,

'THE EARTHLY PARADISE:

373

and octosyllabic. Chance quotations show with what Three modes


of Ckauct'
felicity and perfect ease the modern poet renews the rian verse.
cadences of his master. Take one from " Atalanta's
Race":
"Through thick Arcadian woods a hunter went,
Following the beasts up, on a fresh spring day;
But since his horn-tipped bow, but seldom bent,
Now at the noontide naught had happed to slay,
Within a vale he called his hounds away,
Hearkening the echoes of his lone voice cling
About the cliffs, and through the beech-trees ring."
Another from " The Man Bom to be King " :
" So long he rode he drew anigh
A mill upon the river's brim,
That seemed a goodly place to him,
For
Thereo'erhung
the the
oily,apples
smoothgrowing
millhead
red,

And many an ancient apple-tree


Within the orchard could he see,
While the smooth millwalls, white and black,
Shook to the great wheel's measured clack,
And grumble of the gear within ;
While o'er the roof that dulled that din
The doves sat crooning half the day,
And round the half-cut stack of hay
The sparrows fluttered twittering."
And this, from "The Story of Cupid and Psyche" :
"From place to place Love followed her that day
And ever fairer to his eyes she grew,
So that at last when from her bower she flew,
And underneath his feet the moonlit sea
Went shepherding his waves disorderly,
He swore that of all gods and men, no one
Should hold her in his arms but he alone."
The couplet which I have italicized has an imagi-

374

WILLIAM MORRIS.
native quality not frequent in Morris's verse, for the
excellence of this poet lies rather in his clear vision
and exquisite directness of speech. Examples, other
wise neither better nor worse than the foregoing, may
be taken from any one of the sixteen hundred pages
of his great work. I can give but the briefest state
ment of its method and range.
In each of these metrical forms the verse is smooth
and transparent, the choice result of the author's
Chaucerian studies, with what addition of beauty and
suggestiveness his genius can bestow. His language
is so pure that there absolutely is no resisting medi
um to obscure the interest of a tale. We feel that
he enjoys his story as we do, yet the technical excel
lence, seen at once by a writer, scarcely is thought
of by the lay reader, to whom poetry is in the main
addressed. Morris easily grasps the feeling of each
successive literature from which his stories are de
rived. He is at will a pagan, a Christian, or a wor
shipper of Odin and Thor; and especially has caught
the spirit of those generations which, scarcely emerged
from classicism in the South, and bordered by hea
thendom on the North, peopled their unhallowed
places with beings drawn from either source. Christ
reigned, yet the old gods had not wholly faded out,
but acted, whether fair or devilish, as subjects and
allies of Satan. All this is magically conveyed in
such poems as " The Ring given to Venus " and
" The Lady of the Land." The former may be con
sulted (and any other will do almost as well) for evi
dence of the advantage possessed by Morris through
his knowledge of mediaeval costumes, armor, dances,
festivals, and all the curious paraphernalia of days
gone by. So well equipped a virtuoso, and so facile

'THE EARTHLY PARADISE.'

375

a rhythmist, was warranted in undertaking to write


"The Earthly Paradise," broad as it is in scope, and
extended to the enormous length of forty thousand
lines. The result shows that he set himself a per
fectly feasible task.
In this work he avoids the prolonged strain of
"Jason," by making, with few exceptions, each story
of a length that can be read at a sitting. His har
monic turn is shown in the arrangement of them all
under the signs of the zodiac. We have one clas
sical and one mediaeval legend for each month of
the year. I take it that the framework of the whole,
the romance of voyagers in search of an earthly
Paradise, is familiar to the reader. While Morris
claims Chaucer, as Dante claimed Virgil, for his
master, this only relates to the purpose and form of
his poetry, for the freshness and sweetness are his
own. He has gone to Chaucer, but also to nature,
to the earth whence sprang that well of English
undefiled. His descriptive preludes, that serenely
paint each phase of the revolving year, and the
scenic touches throughout his stories, are truthful and
picturesque. He uses but few and often-repeated ad
jectives ; like the early rhapsodists, once having chosen
an epithet for a certain thing, he clings to it, never
introducing, for novelty's sake, another that is poorer
than the best.
Morris fairly escapes from our turmoil and mate A tinge of
rialism by this flight to the refuge of amusement and fatalism.
simple art. A correlative moral runs through all of
his poetry; one which, it must be owned, savors of
pagan fatalism. The thought conveyed is that noth
ing should concern men but to enjoy what hollow
good the gods award us, and this in the present, be-

376

WILLIAM MORRIS.
fore the days come when we shall say we have no
pleasure in them, before death come, which closes
all. He not only chooses to be a dreamer of dreams,
and will not " strive to set the crooked straight," but
tells us,
" Yes, ye are made immortal on the day
Ye cease the dusty grains of tim to weigh " ;
and in every poem has some passage like this:
" Fear little, then, I counsel you,
What any son of man can do ;
Because a log of wood will last
While many a life of man goes past,
And all is over in slight space."
His hoary voyagers have toiled and wandered, as they
find, in vain :
" Lo,
A long life gone, and nothing more they know,
Why they should live to have desire and foil,
And toil, that, overcome, brings yet more toil,
Than that day of their vanished youth, when first
They saw Death clear, and deemed all life accurst
By that cold, overshadowing threat, the End."
They bave nothing left but to beguile the remnant of
their hours with story and repose, until the grave shall
be reached, in which there, is neither device, nor knowl
edge, nor wisdom. The poet's constant injunction is
to seize the day, to strive not for greater or new
things, since all will soon be over, and who knoweth
what is beyond ? In his epilogue to the entire work
he faithfully epitomizes its spirit:
" Death have we hated, knowing not what it meent ;
Life have we loved, through green leaf anrl through sere,
Though still the less we knew of its intent :
The Earth and Heaven through countless year on year,

' THE EA R THL Y PA RA DISE:

377

Slow changing, were to us but curtains fair,


Hung round about a littlt room, where play
Weeping and laughter of man's empty day."
This tinge of fatalism has a saddening effect upon
Morris's verse, and thus far lessens its charm. A
shadow falls across the feast. One of his critics has
well said that " A poet, in this age of the world, who
would be immortal, must write as if he himself be
lieved in immortality." His personages, moreover, are
phantasmal, and really seem as if they issued from the
ivory gate. Again, while his latest work is a marvel
of prolonged strength and industry, its length gives
it somewhat of an encyclopedic character. The last
volume was not received so eagerly as the first. I Metrical
facility.
would not quote against the author that saying of
Callimachus, " a great book is a great evil " ; never
theless we feel that he has a too facile power, a
story once given him, of putting it into rippling
verse as rapidly as another man can write it in prose.
Still, " The Earthly Paradise " is a library of itself,
and in yielding to its spell we experience anew the
delights which the " Arabian Nights " afforded to our
childhood. What more tempting than to loll in such
an " orchard-close " as the poet is wont to paint for
us, and with clover blooming everywhere, and the
robins singing about their nests to think it a por
tion of that fairy-land " East of the Sun and West of
the Moon " ; or to read the fay-legends of " The Watch
ing of the Falcon " and " Ogier the Dane," or that
history of " The Lovers of Gudrun," which possibly
is the finest, as it is the most extended, of all our
author's romantic poems? What more potent spell
to banish care and pain? And let there be some
one near to sing:

378

WILLIAM MORRIS.
" In the white-flowered hawthorn brake,
Love, be merry for my sake ;
Twine the blossoms in my hair,
Kiss me where I am most fair,
Kiss me, love ! for who knoweth
What thing cometh after death ? "
We have seen that the poetry of William Morris is
thoroughly sweet and wholesome, fair with the beauty
of green fields and summer skies, and pervaded by a
restful charm. Yet it is but the choicest fashion of
romantic narrative-verse. The poet's imagination is
clear, but never lofty ; he never will rouse the soul
to elevated thoughts and deeds. His low, continuous
music reminds us of those Moorish melodies whose
delicacy and pathos come from the gentle hearts of
an expiring race, and seem the murmurous echo of
strains that had an epic glory in the far-away past.
Readers who look for passion, faith, and high im
aginings, will find his measures cloying in the end.
Rossetti's work has been confined to Pre-Chaucerian
minstrelsy, and to the spiritualism of the early Italian
school. Morris advances to a revival of the narra
tive art of Chaucer. The next effort, to complete the
cyclic movement, should renew the fire and lyric out
burst of the dramatic poets. Let us estimate the
promise of what already has been essayed in that
direction ; but to do this we must listen to the
voice of the youngest and most impassioned of the
group that stand with feet planted upon the outer
circuit of the Victorian choir, and with faces looking
eagerly toward the future.

CHAPTER XI.
LATTER-DAY SINGERS.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
SOME years have passed since this poet took the
critical outposts by storm, and with a single SwMumt:
effort gained a laurel-crown, of which no public envy, b^"^^'
nor any lesser action of his own, thenceforth could s, 1837.
dispossess him. The time has been so crowded with
his successive productions his career, with all its
strength and imprudence, has been so thoroughly that
of a poet as to heighten the interest which only a
spirit of most unusual quality can excite and long
maintain.
We have just observed the somewhat limited range
of William Morris's vocabulary. It is composed mainly
of plain Saxon words, chosen with great taste and
musically put together. No barrenness, however, is
perceptible, since to enrich that writer's language
from learned or modern sources would disturb the
tone of his pure English feeling. The nature of His diction.
Swinburne's diction is precisely opposite. His faculty
of expression is so brilliant as to obscure the other
elements which are to be found in his verse, and
constantly to lead him beyond the wisdom of art.
Nevertheless, reflecting upon his genius and the
chances of his future, it is difficult for any one to
write with cold restraint who has an eye to see, an

38o

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


ear to hear, and the practice which forces an artist
to wonder at the lustre, the melody, the unstinted
fire and movement, of his imperious song.

I. '
I wish, then, to speak at some length upon the one
faculty in which Swinburne excels any living English
poet ; in which I doubt if his equal has existed
among recent poets of any tongue, unless Shelley be
excepted, or, possibly, some lyrist of the modern
French school. This is his miraculous gift of rhythm,
his command over the unsuspected resources of a
language. That Shelley had a like power is, I think,
shown in passages like the choruses of " Prometheus
Unbound," but he flourished half a century ago, and
did not have (as Swinburne has) Shelley for a prede
cessor ! A new generation, refining upon the les
sons given by himself and Keats, has carried the
art of rhythm to extreme variety and finish. Were
Shelley to have a second career, his work, if no finer
in single passages, would have, all in all, a range of
musical variations such as we discover in Swinburne's.
So close is the resemblance in quality of these two
voices, however great the difference in development,
as almost to justify a belief in metempsychosis. A
master is needed to awake the spirit slumbering in
any musical instrument. Before the advent of Swin
burne we did not realize the full scope of English
verse. In his hands it is like the violin of Paganini.
The range of his fantasias, roulades, arias, new effects
of measure and sound, is incomparable with anything
hitherto known. The first emotion of one who studies
even his immature work is that of wonder at the

HfS COMMAND OF RHYTHM.


freedom and richness of his diction, the susurrus of
his rhythm, his unconscious alliterations, the endless
change of his syllabic harmonies, resulting in the
alternate softness and strength, height and fall, riot
ous or chastened music, of his affluent verse. How
does he produce it? Who taught him all the hidden
springs of melody ? He was born a tamer of words :
a subduer of this most stubborn, yet most copious of
the literary tongues. In his poetry we discover qual
ities we did not know were in the language, a soft
ness that seemed Italian, a rugged strength we thought
was
spaired
German,
of capturing
a blithefrom
andthe
debonair
French. lightness
He has we
added
de

38l
Unprece
dented mel
ody and
freedom.

a score of new stops and pedals to the instrument.


He has introduced, partly from other tongues, stanzaic
forms, measures and effects untried before ; and has
brought out the swiftness and force of metres like
the anapestic, carrying each to perfection at a single
trial. Words in his hands are like the ivory balls of
a juggler, and all words seem to be in his hands.
His fellow-craftsmen, who alone can understand what
has been done in their art, will not term this state
ment extravagance. Speaking only of his command
over language and metre, I have a right to reaffirm,
and to show by many illustrations, that he is the
most sovereign of rhythmists. He compels the in
flexible elements to his use. Chaucer is more limpid, The most
Shakespeare more kingly, Milton loftier at times, dithyrambic
ofpoets.
Byron has an unaffected power, but neither Shelley
nor the greatest of his predecessors is so dithyrambic,
and no one has been in all moods so absolute an
autocrat of verse. With equal gifts, I say, none
could have been, for Swinburne comes after and prof
its by the art of all. Poets often win distinction by

382

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


producing work that differs from what has gone be
fore. It seems as if Swinburne, in this ripe period,
resolved to excel others by a mastery of known
melodies, adding a new magic to each, and going
beyond the range of the farthest. His amazing tricks
of rhythm are those of a gymnast outleaping his
fellows. We had Keats, Shelley, and Coleridge, after
Collins and Gray, and Tennyson after Keats, but now
Swinburne adds such elaboration, that an art which
we thought perfected seems almost tame. In the
first place, he was born a prodigy, as much so as
Morphy in chess ; added to this he is the product of
these latter days, a phenomenon impossible before.
It is safe to declare that at last a time has come
when the force of expression can no further go.
I do not say that it has not gone too far. The
fruit may be, and here is, too luscious ; the flower is
often of an odor too intoxicating to endure. Yet
what execution ! Poetry, the rarest poetic feeling,
may be found in simpler verse. Yet again, what exe
cution ! The voice may not be equal to the grandest
music, nor trained and restrained as it should be.
But the voice is there, and its possessor has the finest
natural organ to which this generation has listened.
Right here it is plain that Swinburne, especially in
his early poems, has weakened his effects by cloying
us with excessive richness of epithet and sound : in
later works, by too elaborate expression and redun
dancy of treatment. Still, while Browning's amplifi
cation is wont to be harsh and obscure, Swinburne,
even if obscure, or when the thought is one that he
has repeated again and again, always gives us unap
proachable melody and grace. It is true that his gloIries of speech often hang upon the slightest thread

VOICE AND EXECUTION.


of purpose. He so constantly wants to stop and sing
that he gets along slowly with a plot. As we listen
to his fascinating music, the meaning, like the libretto
of an opera, often passes out of mind. The melody
is unbroken : in this, as in other matters, Swinburne's
fault is that of excess. He does not frequently admit
the sweet discords, of which he is a master, nor re
lieve his work by simple, contrasting interludes. Un
til recently his voice had a narrow range ; its effect
resulted from changes upon a few notes. The rich
ness of these permutations was a marvel, yet a series
of them blended into mannerism. Shelley could be
academic at times, and even humorous ; but Swin
burne's monotone, original and varied within its
bounds, was thought to be the expression of a limited
range of feeling, and restricted his early efforts as a
dramatic lyrist.
The question first asked, with regard to either a
poet or singer, is, Has he voice ? and then, Has he
execution ? We have lastly to measure the passion,
imagination, invention, to which voice and method
are but ministers. From the quality of the latter, the
style being the man, we often may estimate the higher
faculties that control them. The principle here in
volved runs through all the arts of beauty and use
A fine vocal gift is priceless, both for itself and for
the spiritual force behind it. With this preliminary
stress upon Swinburne's most conspicuous gift, let us
briefly examine his record, bethinking ourselves how
difficult it is to judge a poet who is obscured by his
own excess of light, and whose earlier verses so cloyed
the mind with richness as to deprive it of the judicial
taste.

383

Voice and
execution
always
essential.

384

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

II.
There is a resemblance, both of temperament and
intellect, between Swinburne and what is known of
Landor in his youth. The latter remained for a com
paratively brief time at college, but the younger poet,
like the elder, was a natural scholar and linguist.
He profited largely by his four years at Oxford, and
the five at Eton which preceded them, for his intuitive
command of languages is so unusual, that a year of
his study must be worth a lustrum of other men's,
and he has developed this gift by frequent and ex
quisite usage. No other Englishman has been so
able to vary his effects by modes drawn, not only
from classical and Oriental literatures, but from the
haunting beauty of mediaeval song. I should suppose
him to be as familiar with French verse, from Ronsard to Hugo, as most of us are with the poetry of
our own language, and he writes either in Greek
or Latin, old and new, or in troubadour French, as
if his thoughts came to him in the diction for the
time assumed. No really admirable work, I think,
can be produced in a foreign tongue, until this kind
of lingui- naturalization has been attained.
His first volume, The Queen Mother and Rosamond,
gave him no reputation. Possibly it was unnoticed
amid the mass of new verse offered the public. We
now see that it was of much significance. It showed
the new author to be completely unaffected by the
current idyllic mode. Not a trace of Tennyson ; just
a trace, on the other hand, of Browning ; above all, a
true dramatic manner of the poet's own, like noth
ing modern, but recalling the cadences, fire, and ac
tion of England's great dramatic period. There were

'THE QUEEN MOTHER' AND 1 ROSAMOND.'


many faults of construction, but also very strong and
beautiful characterizations, in this youth's first essays :
a manifest living in his personages for the time ; such
fine language as this, in " Rosamond " :
" I see not flesh is holier than flesh,
Or blood than blood more choicely qualified
That scorn should live between them."
And this:
" I that have roses in my name, and make
All flowers glad to set their color by;
I that have held a land between twin lips
And turned large England to a little kiss ;
God thinks not of me as contemptible."
" The Queen Mother " (time : the massacre of St.
Bartholomew) is a longer and more complex tragedy
than that from which the foregoing lines are taken.
Catherine de' Medici is strongly and clearly delineated,
a cruel, relentless, yet imposing figure. The style
is caught from Shakespeare, as if the youth's pride
of intellect would let him go no lower for a model.
Study, for example, the language of Teligny, Act III.,
Scene 2 ; and that of Catherine, Act V., Scene 3,
where she avows that if God's ministers could see
what she was about to do, then
" Surely the wind would be as a hard fire,
And the sea's yellow and distempered foam
Displease the happy heaven ; . . . .
.... towers and popular streets
Should in the middle green smother and drown,
And Havoc die with fulness."
In another scene the king says of Denise:
17
y

385

386

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


" Yea, dead ?
She is all white to the dead hair, who was
So full of gracious rose the air took color,
Turned to a kiss against her face."
The scene in which Catherine poisons her clown,
and the whole of the closing portion of Act V., are
full of strength and spirit. Scattered through the two
plays are some of the curious Latin, old French, and
old English lyrics which the author already was so
deft at turning. The volume was inscribed to Rossetti.
It reveals to a penetrative eye many traits of the gen
ius that has since blazed out so finely, and shows the
nature of Swinburne's studies and associates. The
man had come who was to do what Browning had
failed to do in a less propitious time, and make a
successful diversion from the idyllic lead of Tennyson.
The body of recent minor verse fully displays the
swift and radical character of the change.
Three years later Swinburne printed his classical
tragedy, Atalanta in Calydon.1 Whatever may be said
of the genuineness of any reproduction of the antique,
this is the best of its kind. One who undertakes such
work has the knowledge that his theme is removed
from popular sympathy, and must be content with a
restricted audience. Swinburne took up the classical
dramatic form, and really made the dry bones live,
as even Landor and Arnold had not; as no man had,
before or after Shelley; that is to say, as no man
has, for the "Prometheus Unbound," grand as it is,
is classical only in some of its personages and in the
1 During this time he also had written " Chastelard," but held
it in reserve for future publication. "Atalanta" was begun on
the day following the completion of the last-named poem.

'ATALANTA IN CALYDON:
mythical germ of its conception, a sublime poem,
full of absorbing beauty, but antique neither in spirit
nor in form. "Atalanta" is upon the severest Greek
model, that of ^Eschylus or Sophocles, and reads like
an inspired translation. We cannot repeat the antique
as it existed, though a poem may be better or worse.
But consider the nearness of this success, and the
very great poetry involved.
Poetry and all, this thing has for once been done
as well as possible, and no future poet can safely at
tempt to rival it. " Atalanta " is Greek in unity
and simplicity, not only in the technical unities,
utterly disregarded in " Prometheus Unbound," but
in maintenance of a single pervading thought, the im
possibility of resisting the inexorable high gods. The
hopeless fatalism of this tragedy was not the senti
ment of the joyous and reverential Greeks, but reminds
us of the Hebrews, whose God was of a stern and
dreadful type. This feeling, expressed in much of
Swinburne's early verse, is the outcome of a haughty
and untamed intellect chafing against a law which it
cannot resist. Here is an imperious mind, requiring
years of discipline and achievement to bring it into
that harmony with its conditions through which we
arrive at strength, happiness, repose.
The opening invocation of the Chief Huntsman,
with its majestic verse and imagery, alone secures the
reader's attention, and the succeeding chorus, at the
height of Swinburne's lyric reach, resolves attention
to enchantment :
" When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces,
The mother of months in meadow or plain
Fills the shadows and windy places
With lisp of leaves and ripple of rain;

387

The best
English re
production
ofthe an
tique.

388

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


And the brown bright nightingale amorous
Is half-assuaged for Itylus,
For the Thracian ships and the foreign faces,
The tongueless vigil, and all the pain."
Read this divine chorus, and three others equally
perfect of their kind, deepening in grandeur and impressiveness : "Before the beginning of years," "We
have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair," " Who hath
given man speech ? " and we have read the noblest
verse of a purely lyric order that has appeared since
the songs and choruses of the " Prometheus." How
much more dithyrambic than the unrhymed measures
of Arnold ! Rhyme is free as the air, that chartered
libertine, to this poet, and our language in his mouth
becomes not only as strong, but as musical, as the
Greek. The choric spirit is here, however inharmo
nious the thought that God is the "supreme evil,"
covering us with his " hate," or the conclusion of the
whole matter :
"Who shall contend with his lords,
Or cross them or do them wrong?
Who shall bind them as with cords ?
Who shall tame them as with song?
Who shall smite them as with swords ?
For the hands of their kingdom are strong."
Finally, the conception of the drama is large, the
imagination clear, elevated, of an even tone through
out. The herald's account of the hunt is finely poetic.
The choric responses of the last dialogue form a reso
nant climax to the whole. As a work of art it still
remains the poet's flawless effort, showing the most
objective purpose and clarified by the necessity of
restraint. It is good to know that a work of pure
art could at once make its way. It appealed to a

'POEMS AND BALLADS:

389

select audience, but the verdict of the few was so


loud and instant as to gain for " Atalanta " a popular
reading, especially in rude America, with her strange,
pathetic, misunderstood yearning for a rightful share
of the culture and beauty of the older world.
" Chastelard " appeared in the ensuing year ; but
as I wish to mention this poem in some discussion of
the larger work to which it holds the relation of the
first division of a trilogy, and of Swinburne's char
acter as a dramatist, let us pass to the miscellaneous
productions of the ten years intervening between "Ata
lanta" and "Bothwell."

III.
Swinburne's work revived the interest felt in poetry.
His power was so evident that the public looked to
see what else had come from his pen. This led to
the collection, under the title of Poems and Ballads,
of various lyrical pieces, some of which had been
contributed to the serials, while others now were
printed for the first time. Without fair consideration,
this volume was taken as a new and studied work of
the mature poet, and there was much astonishment
over its contents. Here began a notable literary dis
cussion. If unmeasured praise had been awarded to
Swinburne for the chastity and beauty of " Atalanta,"
he now was made to feel how the critical breath could
shift to the opposite extreme and balance its early
favor with reprehension of the severest kind. Here
was a series of wild and Gothic pieces, full of sensu
ous and turbid passion, lavishing a prodigious wealth
of music and imagery upon the most perilous themes,
and treating them in an openly defiant manner.

"Poems and
,866.

Excitement
'thulook.

390

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

Sense was everywhere exalted above spirituality ; and


to them who did not consider the formative nature of
the book and the dramatic purpose of the least re
strained ballads, it seemed as if the young author was
lusting after strange gods, and had plunged into
adoration of Venus and Priapus ; or that he had
drunk of Circe's goblet, and was crowning himself
with garlands ere his transformation into one of the
beasts that follow in her train. Rebukes were freely
uttered, indeed, a storm of denunciation began.
" Notes on Friends and partisans rushed to his defence ; and at
Poems and
Reviews" last the poet spoke for himself, with no doubtful force
1866.
of satire and scorn, in reply both to the reviewers
and to an able but covert attack made against him
by a rival singer. So fierce a literary antagonism has
not been known since the contests of Byron and the
Lake school. Of course it gave the book a wide
reading, followed by a marked influence upon the
style of fledgling poets. The lyrics were reprinted in
America, with the new title of " Laus Veneris,"
A literary taken from the opening poem, another presentment
of the Tannhauser legend that has bewitched so
many of the recent French and English minstrels.
The author's reputation, hitherto confined to the ad
mirers of " Atalanta," now extended to the masses
who read from curiosity. Some were content to rep
rehend, or smack their lips over the questionable
portions of the new book ; but many, while perceiv
ing the crudeness of the ruder strains, rejoiced in
the lyrical splendor that broke out here and there,
and welcomed the poet's unique additions to the
metric and stanzaic forms of English verse.
That Swinburne fairly provoked censure he must
himself have been aware, if he cared enough about

THE POET AND HIS CRITICS.

39 1

the matter to reflect at all. I have no doubt he was Censure


\fairly pro
astonished at its vehemence, and in truth the outcry voked, but
vehe
of the moralists may have been overloud. People did too
ment.
not see, what now is clear enough, that these poems
and ballads represented the primal stages of the
poet's growth. Good or bad, they were brought to
gether and frankly given to the public. Doubtless,
were the author now to make up a library edition of
his works, there are several of these pieces he would
prefer to omit. Of what writer may there not as
much be said, unless, like Rossetti, he has lived be
yond the years of Byron before publishing at all ?
It chances, however, that certain lyrics which we
well could spare on account of their unpleasant sug
gestions are among the most beautiful in language
and form. Others, against which no ethical objec
tions can lie, are weakened by the author's feeblest
affectations. All young poets have sins to answer The volume
an out
for: to Swinburne men could say, as Arthur to Guen- growth
of
evere, " And in the flesh thou hast sinned ! " so mor the poet's
formative
bid and absurd are some of the phrases in this period.
collection. Certainly there was an offence against
good taste and discretion; and, if some of the poems
were open to the interpretation given them, an offence
of a more serious nature, for all indecency is out
lawed of art. The young poet, under a combination
of influences, seems to have had a marked attack of
that green-sickness which the excited and untrained im
agination, mistaking its own fancies for experience,
undergoes before gaining strength through the vigor
of healthy passion, mature and self-contained. Still,
there are those who can more easily forgive the worst
of Swinburne's youthful antics than those unconscious
sins of commonplace, plagiarism, turgidity, the hun-

392

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


dred weak offences that are pardoned in the early
verse of men who make their mark as poets.
After all, " Poems and Ballads " was a first book,
though printed later than " Atalanta." The juvenile
pieces which it contained, written during college life,
are now announced for removal into a volume of ac
knowledged " Early Poems," including also the dra
mas of "Rosamond" and "The Queen Mother." But
the original volume is of great interest, because it
exhibits the germs of everything for which the author
has become distinguished. Its spirit is that of un
bounded freedom, of resistance to an established ideal,
for Swinburne, with Shelley and kindred poets, has
seen that finer ideals will take the place of those that
are set aside. Meantime, in advance of a new reve
lation, he devoted himself to the expression of sensu
ous, even riotous beauty. Unequal as they are, these
lyrics led up to work like " Atalanta," " Songs before
Sunrise," and "Bothwell." They were the ferment of
the heated fancy, and, though murky and 'unsettled,
to be followed by clarity, sweetness, and strength.
The fault of the book is excess. This poet, extrava
gant in spiritual or political revolt, in disdain, in
dramatic outbursts, was no less so in his treatment
of sensuous themes. He could not be otherwise, ex
cept when restrained by his artistic conscience in
work modelled upon accepted forms.
Among the earlier lyrics are to be numbered, I
imagine, those mediaeval studies near the close of the
volume which belong to the same class with much
of Rossetti's and Morris's verse, yet never could be
thought to come from any hand but Swinburne's
own. Such are " The Masque of Queen Bersabe "
(a miracle play), " A Christmas Carol," " St. Dorothy,"

EARLY LYRICS.
and various ballads, besides the " Laus Veneris," to
which I already have referred. In other pieces we
discover the influence which French art and litera
ture had exerted upon the author. His acquaintance
with the round17*of French minstrelsy made it natural
for him to produce a kind of work that at first would
not be relished by the British taste and ear. The
richness of the foreign qualities brought into English
verse by Swinburne has made amends for a passing
phase of Gallic sensualism. What now crosses the
Channel is of a different breed from the stilted for
malism of Boileau. With the rise of Hugo and the
new Romantic school came freedom, lyrical melody,
and dramatic fire. Elsewhere in this volume we note
the still more potential Hebraic influence. "Aholibah " is closely imitated from Hebrew prophecy, and
" A Ballad of Burdens " is imbued with a similar
spirit, reading like the middle choruses in " Atalanta."
More classical studies, " Phaedra " and " At Eleusis,"
approach the grade, of Landor's " Hellenics." The
" Hymn to Proserpine " is a beautiful and noble
poem, dramatically reviving the emotion of a pagan
who chooses to die with his gods, and musical with
cadences which this poet has made distinctly his own.
"Anactoria" and "Dolores," two pieces against which
special objection has been made, exhibit great beauty
of treatment, and a mystical though abnormal feeling,
and are quite too fine to lose. The author holds
them to be dramatic studies, written for men and not
for babes, and connects them with " The Garden of
Proserpine " and " Hesperia," in order to illustrate
the transition from passion to satiety, and thence to
wisdom and repose. The little sonnet, " A Cameo,"
suggests the rationale of this conception, and the

393

French.

Hebraic^

andclassical
influences.

394

Veryfine
foetry.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


latter, I may add, is practically illustrated by a re
view of Swinburne's own productions, from the " Poems
and Ballads " up to " Bothwell."
The value of the book consists in its fine poetry,
and especially in the structure of that poetry, so full
of lyrical revelations, of harmonies unknown before.
Take any stanza of an apostrophe to the sea, in
"The Triumph of Time":
" O fair green-girdled mother of mine,
Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,
Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,
Thy large embraces are keen like pain.
Save me and hide me with all thy waves,
Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,
Those pure cold populous graves of thine,
Wrought without hand in a world without stain."
Or take any couplet from " Anactoria," that musical
and fervent poem, whose imagination and expression
are so welded together, and wherein the English
heroic verse is long sustained at a height to which
it rarely has ventured to aspire :
"Yea, thou shalt be forgotten like spilt wine,
Except these kisses of my lips on thine
Brand them with immortality ; but me
Men shall not see bright fire nor hear the sea,
Nor mix their hearts with music, nor behold
Cast forth of heaven with feet of awful gold
And plumeless wings that make the bright air blind,
Lightning, with thunder for a hound behind
Hunting through fields unfurrowed and unsown,
But in the light and laughter, in the moan
And music, and in grasp of lip and hand
And shudder of water that makes felt on land
The immeasurable tremor of all the sea,
Memories shall mix and metaphors of me."
A certain amount of such writing is bold and fine.

METRICAL VARIATIONS.
The public knows, however, that it was carried by
Swinburne to excess ; that in erotic verse a confec
tion of luscious and cloying epithets was presented
again and again. At times there was an extravagance
which would have been absent if this poet, who has
abundant wit and satire, had also then had a hearty
sense of humor, and which he himself must smile at
now. But go further, and observe his original hand
ling of metres, as in the " Hymn to Proserpine " :
" Wilt thou yet take all, Galilean ? but these thou shalt not take,
The laurel, the palms, and the paean, the breasts of the nymphs
in the brake " ;
and in " Hesperia " :
"Out
Fullofshore
ofthetheis,
golden
sunset,remote
and sad,wild
if atwest
all, where
with thethefulness
sea without
of joy,
As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region
Blowsof with
stories,
a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from
a boy."
Examine, too, the remarkable group of songs, set to
melodies so fresh and novel : among others, " Dedi
cation," " The Garden of Proserpine," " Madonna
Mia," " Rococo," and " Before Dawn." If these have
their faults, what wrinkle can any Sybarite find in
such a rose-leaf as the lyric called " A Match " :
" If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf."

395
Unwhole
some and
fantastic
extrava
gance.

396

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


The tender and pious stanzas in memory of Landor are included among these lyrics. The collection,
after we have noted its weaknesses, extravagance, lack
of technical and moral restraint, still remains the
most striking, the most suggestive volume of miscel
laneous poems that has been offered by any poet of
the younger schools. And it must be confessed that
since its appearance, and after the period of growth
which it represents, not a note has been uttered by
its author to which the most rigid of moralists can
honestly object.
The full bloom of his lyrical genius appears not
only in the choruses of " Atalanta," but in that largemoulded ode, " Ave atque Vale," composed in memory
of Charles Baudelaire. It is founded on the model
of famous English prototypes, to wit, the " Epitaph of
Bion." If unequal to " Lycidas " in idyllic feeling,
or to " Adonais " in lofty scorn and sorrow, it is more
imaginative than the former, and surpasses either in
continuity of tone and the absolute melody of elabo
rate verse. Arnold's " Thyrsis " is a wise and manly
poem, closely adjusted to the classic phrase ; but
here is an ethereal strain of the highest elegiac or
der, fashioned in a severe yet flexible spirit of lyric
art. In stanzaic beauty it ranks, with Keats's odes,
among our rarest examples. Critics who have sat at
the feet of Wordsworth should remember that Swin
burne, in youth, was powerfully affected by the poetry
of the wild and gifted author of "Les Fleurs du
Mai." This threnody comes as directly from the
heart as those of Shelley or Arnold lamenting Keats
or Clough. Baudelaire and his group constituted
what might be termed the Franco-Sapphic school.
Their spirit pervades many of the "Poems and Bal

'AVE ATQUE VALE:

397

lads " ; but Swinburne, more fortunate than his teacher,


has lived to outlive this phase, and is nearing his
visioned " Hesperia " of strength and luminous calm.
The " Ave atque Vale " is a perfect example of the
metrical affluence that renders his verse a marvel. It Metrical
affluence.
is found in the opening lines :
" Shall I strew on thee rose, or rue, or laurel,
Brother, on this that was the veil of thee ? "
The second stanza, recalling the dead poet's favor
ite ideal, is highly characteristic :
" For always thee the fervid, languid glories
Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies ;
Where
Thinethe
earsseaknew
sobs allround
the wandering
Lesbian promontories,
watery sighs
The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave,
Which
That hides
knowstoo
notdeep
wheretheissupreme
that Leucadian
head of grave
song."
An imagination like that of " Hyperion " is found
in other stanzas :
" Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over,
Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet,
Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet
Of some pale Titan-woman like a lover,
Such as thy vision here solicited,
Under the shadow of her fair vast head,
The deep division of prodigious breasts,
The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep,
The weight of awful tresses that still keep
The savor and shade of old-world pine-forests
Where the wet hill-winds weep?"
In one sense the motive thought is below the tech
nical grandeur of the poem. Its ideals are Sappho,
Proserpine, Apollo, and the Venus of Baudelaire,
not the Cytherean, but the Gothic Venus "of the

398

Tribute to
the memory
of Gautier.
1871

Swinburne'1*
tongues.

See page 62.

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


hollow hill." The round of Baudelaire's conceptions
is thus pursued, after the antique fashion, with ex
quisite and solemn power. The tone is not one of
high laudation, but of a minstrel who recalls the dead
as he was, a chant of sorrow and appreciation, not
of hope. What extravagance there may be is in the
passion and poetry lavished upon the theme. It is
an ode written for persons of delicate culture ; no
one else can grasp the allusions, though who so dull
as not to be captivated by the sound ! But the same
may be said of " Adonais " or " Hylas " ; and here
again recurs the question asked concerning Landor,
Shall not the wise, as well as the witless, have their
poets ?
The "Memorial Verses on the Death of The'ophile
Gautier" are also beautiful. They are composed in a
grave form of quatrain resembling, though with a dif
ference, FitzGerald's version of the " Rubaiyat of Omar
Khayyam." The elegy is the longest of our author's
contributions to a volume in which eighty poets of
France, Italy, and England united to lay upon the
tomb of Gautier a wreath more profuse with laurels
than any other which has been recorded in the history
of elegiac song. Swinburne's portion of this remark
able tribute includes, also, an English sonnet, a son
net and an ode in French, and Greek and Latin
verses such as, I think, no other of the chanting
multitude could have composed. A word in respect
to his talent for this kind of work. Possibly Landor
was a more ready Latinist, but no Englishman has
written Greek elegiac to equal either the dedication
of " Atalanta " or the Gautier " inscriptions " con
tained in this memorial volume. Having spoken of
the uselessness of Landor's classical exploits, I would

GREEK AND LATIN VERSES.


here add that their uselessness relates to the audi
ence, and not to the poet. The effect of such prac
tice upon himself and Swinburne would of itself argue
for this amendment. The younger poet's own language
is so modest and suggestive, that in repeating what
was privately uttered I simply do him justice by
stating his position better than it can otherwise be
stated. " The value of modern Latin or Greek verse,"
he says, "depends, I think, upon the execution. Good
verse, at any time, is a good thing, and a change of
instrument now and then is good practice for the
performer's hand
I confess that I take delight
in the metrical forms of any language of which I
know anything whatever, simply for the metre's sake,
as a new musical instrument ; and, as soon as I can,
I am tempted to try my hand or my voice at a new
mode of verse, like a child trying to sing before it
can speak plain." In short, to a poet like Swinburne
diversions of this kind have a practical value, even
though they seem to be those of a knight tilting at
a wayside tournament as he rides on his votive
quest.
We have dwelt so long upon the lyrics as to have
little space for examination of more recent and im
portant works. My object has been to observe the
development of the poet's genius, and thence derive
an estimate of his present career. From 1867 to
187 1 he gave his ardent sympathy to the cause of
European freedom, exerting himself in laudation, al
most in apotheosis, of the republican heroes and
martyrs. Possibly his radical tendency was strength
ened in youth by association with a sturdy grandsire,
the late Sir John Swinburne, who was a personal
friend of Mirabeau, and to the last of his ninety-

399

400

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


eight years an ultra-liberal of the French revolu
tionary school. The democratic poets of this century
men like Landor, Shelley, Hugo, Swinburne often
are to be found among those of patrician birth and
culture. Swinburne, as if tired of art followed for its
own sake, threw his soul into the struggle of the
French and Italian patriots. A Song of Italy is
marked by sonorous eloquence, and carries us buoy
antly along ; yet, despite its splendid apostrophes to
Mazzini and Garibaldi, it was not a poem to be
widely received and to stir the common heart. It
appeals to the lover of high poetry rather than to
votaries of the cause. The Ode on llie French Republic
was less worthy of the author, and not equal to its
occasion. It bears the stamp of work composed for
a special event as plainly as some of Southey's or
Wordsworth's laureate odes. We may apply to it a
portion of Swinburne's own censure of a far nobler
poem, Lowell's " Commemoration Ode," of which
many an isolated line is worth more to a great nation
than the whole French ode can ever be to them that
love France. Songs before Sunrise may be taken as
the crowning effort of the author during the period
just named. It is a series of lofty and imposing odes,
exhibiting Swinburne's varied lyrical powers and his
most earnest traits of character. The conflict of day
with night before the sunrise of freedom is rehearsed
in twoscore pieces, which chant the democratic up
rising of Continental Europe and the outbreak in
Crete. Grouped together, the effect is that of a strong
symphonic movement ; yet much of it is tumultuous
and ineffective. The prolonged earnestness fags the
reader, and helps a cause less than might some pop
ular lyric or soldier's hymn. A trace of the spas-

PROSE WRITINGS.
modic manner injures much of Swinburne's revolu
tionary verse. Yet here are powerful single poems :
"The Watch in the Night," " Hertha," the "Hymn
of Man," and " Perinde ac Cadaver." " Hertha " rates
high among the author's pieces, having so much lyric
force and music united with condensed and clarified
thought. " The Eve of Revolution " is like the sound
of a trumpet, and charged with fiery imagination, a
fit companion-piece to Coleridge's finest ode.
In Swinburne's poems we do not perceive the love
of nature which was so passionate an element in the
spirit and writings of Shelley, that exile from the
hearts and households of his fellow-men. Were he
compelled to follow art as a means of subsistence
and to suit his work to the market, it would be more
condensed and practical, yet would, I think, lose some
thing of its essential flavor. After all, he has been
an industrious man of letters, devoted to literature
as a matter of love and religion. The exhaustive
essays upon Blake and Chapman, his various pref
aces and annotations, and his criticisms of Arnold,
Morris, and Hugo, among other professional labors,
are fresh in mind. The prose, like the poetry, is
unflagging and impetuous beyond that of other men.
No modern writer, save De Quincey, has sustained
himself so easily and with such cumulative force
through passages which strain the reader's mental
power. His organ of expression is so developed that
no exercise of it seems to produce brain-weariness,
and he does not realize that others are subject to that
kind of fatigue.
He rarely takes up the critical pen unless to pay
honor to a work he admires, or to confront some foe
with dangerous satire and wrath. His language is so

401

No marked
passionfor
nature.

Critical ana*
other prose
essays.

402

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


enthusiastic that it does not always convince ; in fact,
his rhetoric and generous partisanship lessen his ju
dicial authority. His writings often are too learned.
Scholarship is a second nature with him ; he is not
obscure, like Browning, but his allusions are so famil
iar to himself that he cannot bring them to the level
of popular comprehension. Nor can he, however laud
atory of the masters he affected in youth, look upon
other modern poets except with the complacency felt
by one who listens to a stranger's rude handling of
the native tongue. His command of verse is so be
yond that of any other Briton, that poets of different
grades must seem to him pretty much alike, and their
relative gifts scarcely worth distinguishing. By the
law of attractions I should expect to see him inter
ested in verse of the most bald and primeval form.
Many excel him in humor, simplicity, range of in
ventive power. But contend with him in rhythm,
and, though you are Thor himself, you are trying to
drain
While
the recognizing
horn of which
his one
thorough
end ishonesty,
open toI the
do sea.
not
assent to his judgment of American poets.
In
Under the Microscope he pays a tribute to Poe, and
has a just understanding of the merits and defects
of Whitman. His denunciation of all the rest, as
either mocking-birds in their adherence to models,
or corn-crakes in the harshness and worthlessness of
their original song, results, it is plain, not from preju
dice, but from ignorance of the atmosphere which per
vades American life. A poet must sing for his own
people. Whitman, for instance, well and boldly avows
himself the mouthpiece of our democratic nationality.
Aside from the unconscious formalism that injures his
poems, and which Swinburne has pointed out, he has

AMERICAN POETS.
done what he could, and we acknowledge the justice
shown to one, at least, of our representative men.
But to cite other examples, and a few are enough
for this digression, if Swinburne thoroughly under
stood the deep religious sentiment, the patriotism, the
tender aspiration, of the best American homes, he
would perceive that our revered Whittier had fairly
expressed these emotions ; would comprehend the na
tional affection which discerns quality even in his
faults, and originality and music in his fervent strains.
And if he could feel the mighty presence of American
woods and waters, he would see how simply and
grandly the author of " Thanatopsis," " A Forest
Hymn," and " The Night Journey of a River," had
communed with nature, and acknowledge the Doric
strength and purity of his imaginative verse. Our
figure-school is but lately founded ; landscape-art and
sentiment have had to precede it ; but, again, cannot
even a foreign critic find in poems like Lowell's " The
Courtin' " an idyllic truth that Theocritus might re
joice in, all that can be made of the New England
dialect, and pictures full of sweetness and feeling ?
Of this much I am confident, and this much will
serve. America is not all frontier, and her riper
thought and life are reflected in her literature. Our
poets may avail themselves of " the glory that was
Greece " with as much justice and originality as any
British minstrel. The artist claims all subjects, times,
and places for his own. Bryant, Emerson, Whittier,
Lowell, Longfellow, to cite no lesser or younger
names, are esteemed by a host of their countrymen
who can read between the lines ; their poems are the
music of a land to which British authors now must
look for the largest and ever-growing portion of their

403

404

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


own constituency. Each one of these poets as truly
represents his country as any of their comrades who
secure foreign attention by claiming a special prerog
ative in this office.

IV.
To return to Chastelard, which appeared close after
" Atalanta," but in order of composition, as I have
said, is known to have preceded the classical drama.
The latter poem seemed flooded with moonlight, but
" Chastelard " is warm-blooded and modern, charged
with lurid passion and romance. As a historical
tragedy it was a direct test of the dramatic powers
of the author, and it is as a dramatic poet that he
must be chiefly regarded. In this play we see the
ripening of the genius that in youth produced "The
Queen Mother," and to me it has far more interest
than Swinburne's political lyrics. Mary Stuart and
her " four Maries " are the women of the piece \
Chastelard, her minstrel-lover, and Darnley, the lead
ing men ; Knox, who is to figure so grandly in another
and greater work, drifts as a gloomy and portentous
shadow across the scene. The poem opens with an
exquisitely light French song of the period. A fine
romantic flavor, smacking of the " dance and Pro
vencal song," pervades the interludes of the tragedy.
The interest centres in the charm wrought by Mary
upon Chastelard, although he knows the cruelty of
one who toys with him while her ambition suffers
him to be put to death. The dungeon-scene, in which
he foregoes the Queen's pardon, is very powerful.
Swinburne may almost be said to have discovered
Mary Stuart. Upon his conception of her character

' chastelard.'
he lavishes his strength ; she becomes the historic
parallel of the Gothic Venus, loving love rather than
her lover, full of passion, full of softness and beauty,
full of caprice, vengeance, and deceit. She says of
herself :
" Nay, dear, I have
No tears in me ; I never shall weep much,
I think, in all my life ; I have wept for wrath
Sometimes, and for mere pain, but for love's pity
I cannot weep at all. I would to God
You loved me less ; I give you all I can
For all this love of yours, and yet I am sure
I shall live out the sorrow of your death
And be glad afterwards."
Yet this royal Lamia, when with a lover (and she
never is without one), is so much passion's slave as
to invite risks which certainly will be the death of
her favorite, and possibly her own ruin. In depict
ing her as she moves through the historic changes of
her life Swinburne has fortunately chosen a theme
well suited to him. Mary Beaton, who in secret
adores Chastelard, serves as a foil to the Queen, and
is an equally resolute character. The execution scene
is strongly managed, with thrilling dialogue between
this Mary and Mary Carmichael ; at the end room is
made for my lord of Bothwell, next the Queen.
Though alive with poetry and passion, this play, like
" Atalanta," is restrained within artistic bounds. It
has less mannerism than we find in most of the au
thor's early style. The chief personages are drawn
strongly and distinctly, and the language of the Scot
tish citizens, burgesses, courtiers, etc., is true to the
matter and the time. The whole play is intensely
emotional, the scenes and dialogue are vigorously
conceived, and it must be owned that " Chastelard "

405

406

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


was a remarkable essay for a poet of Swinburne's
age at the date of its production.
Nevertheless, youth is the time to feel, and there
fore for a poet to illustrate, the extreme abandonment
of delirious but unselfish passion. The second and
greater portion of the Stuart trilogy required a man
to write it. Now that almost a decade of creative
and somewhat tempestuous experience has strength
ened, calmed, and otherwise perfected Swinburne's
faculties, he completes the grand historical poem of
Bothwell; a prodigious work in every way, possibly
the longest five-act drama ever written, and, at least,
longer than any whose power and interest have not
given out before the close. The time has not yet
come to determine its place in English literature.
But I agree with them who declare that Swinburne,
by this massive and heroic composition, has placed
himself in the front line of our poets ; that no one
can be thought his superior in true dramatic power.
The work not only is large, but written in a large
manner. It seems deficient in contrasts, especially
needing the relief which humor, song and by-play af
ford to a tragic plot. But it is a great historical
poem, cast in a dramatic rather than epic form, for
the sake of stronger analysis and dialogue. Consid
ered as a dramatic epic, it has no parallel, and is
replete with proofs of laborious study and faithful
use of the rich materials afforded by the theme. Ar
tistically speaking, this painstaking has checked the
movement ; even so free and ardent a genius is ham
pered by scholarship, on which Jonson prided himself,
though imagination served Shakespeare's turn.
On the other hand, " Bothwell " is a genuine con
tribution to history. The subject has grown upon

ibothwell:
the poet. This section of the trilogy is many times
the length of " Chastelard." " Things, now, that bear
a weighty and a serious brow " are set before the
reader. Great affairs of state hang at poise ; Rizzio,
Darnley, Murray, Gordon, Knox, Bothwell, and the
Queen are made to live or die in our presence, and
the most of them are tangled in a red and desperate
coil. Mary's character has hardened ; she has grown
more reckless, fuller of evil passion, and now is not
only a murderess by implication, but, outraged by the
slaughter of Rizzio, becomes a murderess in fact.
The sum of her iniquities is recounted by Knox in
his preachment to the citizens of Edinburgh. That
wonderful harangue seems to me the most sustained
and characteristic passage in modern verse ; but even
this Mary Stuart, who " washed her feet " in the
blood of her lovers, even she has found her tamer
in the brutal and ruthless Bothwell, who towers like
a black demon throughout the play. Nevertheless, The Queen
ofScots.
amid her cruelties and crimes, we discover, from her
very self-abandonment to the first really strong man
she has met, that her falseness has been the reac
tion of a fine nature warped and degraded by the
feeble creatures hitherto imposed upon her. Such
love as she had for the beautiful was given to her
poet and her musician, to Chastelard and Rizzio ;
but only the virile and heroic can fully satisfy her
own nature and master it for good or evil. Under
certain auspices, from her youth up, she might have
been
Among
a paragon
the various
of love,
notable
sovereignty,
passages
andinwomanhood.
this drama
Notablefassages and
are : the death of Rizzio, the scenes before and after scenes.
the murder of Darnley, the interviews between Bothwell and Mary in Hermitage Castle and elsewhere,

408

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


the populace harangued by Knox ; finally, the clos
ing speech of the Queen to Mary Beaton, whose
sinister avowal,
" But I will never leave you till you die ! "
connects the entire plot with that ominous future,
whose story, ever deepening in gloom, has yet to
make the trilogy complete. " Bothwell " exhibits no
excess but that of length, and no mannerism ; on the
contrary, a superb manner, and a ripe, pure, and ma
jestic style. To show the strength, richness, and
dramatic variety of Swinburne's mature language, let
us take a few extracts from the dialogue of this
historical play, with its threescore personages and as
many shifting scenes. The first portrays the soldier,
Bothwell :
" Queen. Does your wound pain you ?
Bothwell.
What, I have a wound ?
Queen. How should one love enough, though she gave all,
Who had your like to love ? I pray you tell me,
How did you fight ?
Bothwell.
Why, what were this to tell ?
I caught this riever, by some chance of God,
That put his death into mine hand, alone,
And charged him ; foot to foot we fought some space,
And he fought well ; a gallant knave, God wot,
And worth a sword for better soldier's work
Than these thieves' brawls; I would have given him life
To ride among mine own men here and serve,
But he would nought ; so being sore hurt i' the thigh,
I pushed upon him suddenly, and clove
His crown through to the chin."
The second is from the lips of Mary, shut up in
Lochleven Castle :
" Queen. Ay, we were fools, we Maries twain, and thought
To be into the summer back again

' bothwell:

409

And see the broom Wow in the golden world,


The gentle broom on hill. For all men's talk
And all things come and gone yet, yet I find
I am not tired of that I see not here,
The sun, and the large air, and the sweet earth,
And the hours that hum like fire-flies on the hills
As they burn out and die, and the bowed heaven,
And the small clouds that swim and swoon i' the sun,
And the small flowers."
Lastly, a few
18 powerful lines from Knox's terrific John Knox.
indictment of the Queen :
"John Knox
Then shall one say,
Seeing these men also smitten, as ye now
Seeing them that bled before to do her good,
God is not mocked ; and ye shall surely know
What men were these and what man he that spake
The things I speak now prophesying, and said
That if ye spare to shed her blood for shame,
For fear or pity of her great name or face,
God shall require of you the innocent blood
Shed for her fair face' sake, and from your hands
Wring the price forth of her blood-guiltiness."
. . . . " Her reign and end
Shall be like Athaliah's, as her birth
Was from the womb of Jezebel, that slew
The prophets, and made foul with blood and fire
The same land's face that now her seed makes foul
With whoredoms and with witchcrafts ; yet they say
Peace, where is no peace, while the adulterous blood
Feeds yet with life and sin the murderous heart
That hath brought forth a wonder to the world
And to all time a terror ; and this blood
The hands are clean that shed, and they that spare
In God's just sight spotted as foul as Cain's."
The exceptions taken against poems of Swinburne's
youth will not hold in respect to this fine production.
The most serious charge that can be brought is that

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


of its undue length, and as to this the judgments of
different readers will be as various as their tempera
ments. " Bothwell " is a work for vigorous minds,
and to such it must always seem the bloom of beauty
and power. I think it would be fortunate if some
new outlet of expression could be made for the dra
matic spirit of our time. Men like Browning and
Swinburne do not readily become playwrights ; the
stage now requires of a drama that it shall be written
in sparkling prose or the lightest of verse, and, of the
author, cleverness and ingenuity rather than poetic
greatness. It would not injure this writer to shape
his work for a direct hearing, to be restricted by the
limits of an arbitrary system ; but might have upon
these historical tragedies a gracious effect like that
which resulted from the antique method applied to
his " Atalanta." Ritualism, the bane of less prolific
natures, is what such a man need not fear. Ease of
circumstances has not made an amateur of this artist
and enthusiast ; nevertheless, in his case, the benefits
of professional independence are nearly balanced by
the ills.

Taine brings a great cloud of examples to show


that each period shapes the work and fortunes of its
authors, but it is equally true that men of genius
create new modes, and often determine the nature of
periods yet to come. Swinburne may live to see the
time and himself in correspondence. To me he seems
the foremost of the younger school of British poets.
The fact that a man is not yet haloed with the light
that comes only when, in death or in hoary age, he

HIS GENIUS AND WORKS.


recalls to us the past, need not debar him from full
recognition. A critic must be quick to estimate the
present. For some years, as I have observed the
successive efforts of this poet, a feeling of his genius
has grown upon me, derived not only from his prom
ise, but from what he actually has done. If he were
to write no more, and his past works should be col
lected in a single volume, although, as in the re
mains of Shelley, we might find little narrative-verse,
what a world of melody, and what a wealth of imagi
native song ! It is true that his well-known manner
would pervade the book ; we should find no great
variety of mood, few studies of visible objects, a
meagre reflection of English life as it exists to-day.
Yet a. subtile observer would perceive how truly he
represents his own time, and to a poet this compen
dium would become a lyrical hand-book, a treasured
exposition of creative and beautiful design.
Acknowledging the presence of true genius, minor
objections are of small account. A poet may hold
himself apart, or from caprice may do things un
worthy of his noblest self, but we think of him al
ways as at his best. The gift is not so common ;
let us value it while it is here. Let us also do
justice to the world, to the world that, remember
ing its past errors, no longer demands of great wits
that they should wholly forego madness. Fifty years
ago, and Swinburne, for his eccentricities and dis
dain, might have been an exile like Byron and Shel
ley, or, for his republicanism, imprisoned like Leigh
Hunt. We have learned that poets gather from strange
experiences what they teach in song. If rank un
wholesome flowers spring from too rich a soil, in the
end a single fruitful blossoming will compensate us

411

A mount
and richness
ofthe work
already ac
complished
by this poet.

Genius to be
measured at
its best.

412

ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.


for the sterile fleurs du mal of youth. Lastly, Swin
burne has been said to lack application, but ten years
of profuse and consecutive labors refute the charge.
Works like his are not produced without energy and
long industrious hours. If done at a heat, the slow
hidden fire has never ceased its burning. Who shall
dictate to a poet his modes and tenses, or his choice
of work ? But all this matters nothing ; the entire
host of traditional follies need not abash us if, with
their coming, we have a revival of the olden passion
and the olden power.

During the Georgian era a romantic sentimentalism,


exalted to passion in the utterance of Byron, was the
dominating spirit of British verse. The more subtile
but slowly maturing influence of the Lake school, and
that of the idealists Shelley and Keats, did not lay
firm hold upon the immediate generation. Their effect
was not wh&lly apparent until the beginning of our
own time. Nevertheless, a few poets, among whom
Hunt and Procter were notable, extended it over a
transition period, and finally saw it become a general
and potent force. The reader now has observed the
technical finish, the worship of pure beauty, and the
revival of classical taste, discernible, before the work
of Keats, in the artistic method of Landor, a poet
who so recently ended his career. These constituents,
more fully developed by the exquisite genius of Keats,
were to mark the outward features of English metri
cal literature during the refined era whose poets have
been included under this review ; whose spirit, more
over, suggested that contemplative method which rose
to imagination in the high discourse of Wordsworth,

RETROSPECTIVE SUMMARY.
and too often sinks to didacticism in the perplexed
and timorous strains of his disciples.
After passion, reflection, taste, repose ; and such
have been the qualities displayed by numbers of the
Victorian poets in the contemplation of beauty and
knowledge, and in the production of their composite
verse. At last a Neo-Romantic school, of which
Browning and Rossetti have been leaders, is engaged
in a nervous effort to reunite beauty and passion in
rhythmical art. Swinburne, beyond the rest, having
carried expression to its farthest extreme, obeys a
healthful impulse, seeking to renew the true dramatic
vigor and thus begin another cycle of creative song.
Even Tennyson, in the mellow ripeness of his fame,
perceives that the mission of the idyllist is ended, and
extends to the latest movement his adherence and prac
tical aid. Going outside his special genius and life
long wont, he now through sheer intellectual force,
and the skill made perfect by fifty years of practice
has composed, with deliberate forethought and consum
mate art, a drama that does not belie the name. With
out much imaginative splendor, it is at least objective
and adapted to the fitness of things, and thus essen
tially different from Browning's essays toward a revival
of the dramatic mould. On the other hand, it also dif
fers from the work of the Elizabethan dramatists, in
that it is the result of a forced effort, while the models
after which it is shaped were in their day an intui
tive form of expression, the natural outgrowth of a
thoroughly dramatic age. The very effort, however, is
alike honorable to England's Laureate and significant
of the present need. Wisdom, beauty, and passion
a blended trinity constitute the poetic strength of
every imaginative era, and memorably that of Shake-

413

4'4

RETROSPECTIVE SUMMARY.
speare's time. So long as the true critic's faith, hope,
and charity abide (and the greatest of these is charity),
he will justify every well-timed, masterly effort to re
call the triune spirit of Britain's noblest and most
enduring song.

[End of the Original Text.]

TWELVE YEARS LATER.


A SUPPLEMENTARY REVIEW.
1887.
WITH respect to the poetry of Great Britain, Limits of
the fancy may be indulged that this year's
festivals not only celebrate the rounding of a bril- Period.
liant and distinct period, but stand for a kind of
Secular Games as well. It is just a century since
Burns and Coleridge and Wordsworth were in the
joy of that new dawn, when
" To be young was very heaven " ;
and no other land than theirs, meanwhile, has shown
a more unbroken procession of imaginative poets.
There was a brief nooning between the early and
later rehearsals, but the music of great voices has
never wholly stopped. This still is heard, though
more than a decade of years ago it seemed, and
rightly, as if the typical Victorian era were complete.
But in the summer of the North the last hours of a
day whose wings of light come near to touching its
successor's, although the winds fall and the chief
workers mostly go to rest, have a lustre of their
own. The survival of influences that long since be
came historic is a chance coincidence with the pro
longation of a fortunate reign, and due to veteran
leaders whose strength has been more than equal to
their day.

416

THE VICTORIAN SCHOOL.


Tennyson and Browning, although two generations
of younger men pay homage to them, have been,
with the exception of Swinburne, the most unflag
ging poets of the recent interval. Moreover, and
maugre the flings of wits who judge them by trifles
and failures, and who neither care for nor compre
hend their important work, they have given us
much that is up to the standard of their prime. In
no respect have they been superannuated or piping
out of date, little as they have had to do with the
jest and prettiness, the vivacious experiments, with
which youth busies itself ere an hour comes for se
rious attention to the conduct of a new movement.
Yet if literary eras, like those of Elizabeth and
Anne, are characterized by a special style or spirit,
that for which the Victorian is already historic, on
its poetic side, results from certain idyllic and reflec
tive tendencies, with their interblendings and out
growths. It ceased to be dominant before 1875,
going off, as I pointed out, into aesthetic neo-Romanticism on the one hand, and a sub-dramatic or
psychological method on the other. If life may be
judged by its mature and most prolonged activities,
the Victorian school will be recognized as we have
recognized it. It is beyond ordinary precedent that
its two chief poets are still in voice, and still pre
eminent. Of Browning it may be said that he has
bided his time, and now is the master of an enthu
siastic following. But even Tennyson has charged
his later idyls with passion, and succeeded in mak
ing at least his lyrics dramatic. On the technical
side, recent craftsmen take their cue from the forms,
melody, color, of Swinburne and Rossetti. What dif
fers and is strictly novel, though much in vogue,

ITS GREATEST LEAVERS.


seldom aspires to the higher range in which these
elder leaders have moved almost alone.
The conjectural length of a poet's life doubtless
is not yet reckoned in the tables of insurance actu
aries. But the longevity of modern poets really
seems to have been governed by their mental cast.
The romancers, and the lyrists of great sensibility
or intense experience, quicken their heart-beats and
often have died young. Many poets of " self-rev
erence, self-knowledge, self-control," whose intellect
is the regulator of well-ordered lives, have lived
long : such men as Emerson and Longfellow in
America as Wordsworth, Tennyson, and Browning in
England. The recent drift and they have strength
ened it has been toward the rule of intellect over
passion, and the brain-power of such masters has
maintained them in wonderful vitality and produc
tiveness to an advanced age.
However this may be, the most suggestive portion
of the record now before us is that concerned with
the last-named poets. England alone can now boast
of two so equal in years and fame, yet so distinct
in genius, and still producing works unsurpassed by
the efforts of their juniors. Like two brave galleys
they still head the fleet, and with all sails spread,
though the mists of an unknown sea are straight be
fore them. As for the Laureate, all England knows
him by heart. Successive ranks of generous and
cultured youths have doted on his works, so that
his gradual age is watched and understood, some
what as in a family the bodily and mental changes
of its revered master are observed by the household.
At times his verse, and oftener than that of his
more dramatic compeer's, has sprung from sudden

41/"

4i8

TENNYSON.
outbursts of feeling, and never more so than in the
fine heat and choler of his later years. New read
ers may not comprehend these moods, but they are
intelligible to those who have owed him so much in
the past, and do not affect our judgment of his long
career.

A good deal of force has been expended by the


Laureate to disprove the claim that he would not
greatly excel as a dramatist for either the closet or
the stage. His mental and constructive gifts are
such that, if he had begun as a " writer of plays," he
doubtless would have been successful, but never,
I believe, could have reached his present eminence.
His first drama, "Queen Mary," seemed to confirm
an early prediction that he might yet produce a tol
erable work of that kind, though only by a tour de
force. Since then, through strong will and persistency,
he has composed a succession of dramas, historical
and romantic ; but neither will nor judgment, nor
the ambition to prove his mastery of the highest
and most inclusive form of literature, has enabled
him in the afternoon of life to triumph as a drama
tist. The first actor of England, with matchless resourees for theatrical presentation, was able more
than once to make the performance of a play by
Tennyson a notable and picturesque event, but noth
ing more ; nor have those produced with equal care
by others become any part of the stage repertory.
There are charmingly poetic qualities in the minor
pieces, and one of them, " The Cup," is not without
effects, but even this will not hold the stage,
while " The Falcon " and " The Promise of May " are

HIS DRAMA TIG EFFORTS, s


plainly amateurish. They contain lovely songs and
trifles, but when a great master merges the poet in
the playwright he must be judged accordingly. Har
old and Becket are of a more imposing cast, and
have significance as examples of what may and
of what may not be effected by a strong artist in a
department to which he is not led by compulsive
instinct. Their ancestral themes are in every way
worthy of an English poet. " Harold," in style and
language, is much like the Idyls of the King, nor
does it greatly surpass them in dramatic quality,
though a work cast in the standard five-act mould.
There is a strong scene where the last of the Saxon
kings is forced to swear allegiance to William of
Normandy. As a whole, the work is conventional, its
battle-scenes reminiscent of Shakespeare and Scott,
and the diction tinged with the author's old manner
isms. " Becket," seven years later, is his nearest
approach to a dramatic masterpiece, and at a differ
ent time might have ranged itself in stage-literature.
It is quite superior, as such, to pieces by Talfourd,
Knowles, etc., that are still revived ; but this is poor
praise indeed for one of Tennyson's fame, and as
suredly not worth trying for. It must be admitted
that years of self-abstraction, of intimacy with books
and nature, are not likely to develop the gift of
even a born novelist or dramatic poet. Human life
is his proper study : his task the expression of its
struggle, passion, mirth and sorrow, virtue and crime,
and these must be transcribed by one that has
been whirled in their eddies or who observes them
very closely from the shore.
In striking contrast, Tennyson's recent lyrical po
etry is the afterglow of a still radiant genius. Here

419

Tragedies,

"Harold?
1876.

"Becket,"
1S84.

Lyrical
Verse.

420

LA TER L YRICS.
we see undimmed the fire and beauty of his natural
gift, and wisdom increased with age. What a col
lection, short as it is, forms the volume of Ballads
issued in his seventy-first year ! It opens with the
thoroughly English story of "The First Quarrel,"
with its tragic culmination,
"And the boat went down that night, the boat went down
that night ! "
Country life is what he has observed, and he re
flects it with truth of action and dialect. " The
Northern Cobbler" and "The Village Wife" could
be written only by the idyllist whose Yorkshire bal
lads delighted us in 1866. But here are greater
things, two or three at his highest mark. The passion
and lyrical might of " Rizpah " never have been ex
ceeded by the author, nor, I think, by any other poet
of his day. " The Revenge " and " Lucknow " are
magnificent ballads. " Sir John Oldcastle " and " Co
lumbus " are not what Browning would have made
of them ; but, again, " The Voyage of Maeldune " is a
weird and vocal fantasy, unequally poetic, with the
well-known touch in every number. Five years later
another book of purely Tennysonian ballads ap
peared. Its title-piece, Tiresias, may be classed with
" Lucretius " and " Tithonus," yet scarcely equals the
one as a study, or the other for indefinable poetic
charm. "The Wreck" and "Despair" are full of
power, and there are two more of the unique dia
lect-pieces, " To-morrow " and " The Spinster's Sweet'arts." A final Arthurian idyl, " Balin and Balan,"
is below the level of the work whose bulk it en
larges. "The Charge of the Heavy Brigade," much
inferior to the Balaklavan lyric, shows that will can

THE SECOND " LOCKSLEY HALL."


not supply the heat excited by a thrilling and in
stant occasion.
A poem in this volume, "The Ancient Sage," con
sists of speculations on the Nameless, and on the
universal question which presents itself ever more
strenuously as life's shadows lengthen. In this sense,
it is of kin to Browning's " Ferishtah " and " Jochannan Hakkadosh." Still more noteworthy is the
impetuous elegiac " Vastness," written in 1885, and
as yet not placed in a collection. The persiflage
bestowed upon this, and afterward, in various quar
ters, upon the second Locksley Hall, proclaimed the
rise of a generation not wonted to the poet's habit
of speech ; more, it revealed one out of patience
with its creeds, and consoling itself by avoiding res
olute thought upon what confronts and challenges
our mortality. Tennyson, smitten by the death of a
friend, reflects that not here alone dear faces steadily
vanish, but
" Many a planet by many a sun may roll with the dust of a vanish'd race."
In the knowledge of this, what are all our politics,
turmoil, love, ambition, but "a trouble of ants in
the gleam of a million million of suns " ? What is
it all, forsooth, if at last we end,
" Swallowed in Vastness, lost in Silence, drown'd in the deeps of
a meaningless Past " ?
As was natural, the sequel to " Locksley Hall " was
received with more than curiosity with a certain
philosophical interest. I do not see that it is out of
temper with that fervid chant which, forty-five years
before, seized upon all young hearts and caught the
ear of the world. Here is the same protest against

421

422

THE PEERAGE.

conditions : in youth, a revolt from convention and


class-tyranny ; in age, a protest against lawlessness
The foeCs and irreverence. The poet now as then resists the
youth and main grievance but with an old man's increased
age.
petulance of speech. His after-song does not wreak
itself upon the master passions of love and ambition,
and hence fastens less strongly on the thoughts of
the young ; nor does it come with the unused rhythm,
the fresh and novel cadence, that stamped the now
hackneyed measure with a lyric's name. Yet, as to
its art and imagery, the same effects are there, dif
fering only in a more vigorous method, an inten
tional roughness, from the individual early verse.
The new burthen is termed pessimistic, but for all
its impatient summary of ills, it ends with a cry of
faith. And so ends " Vastness " :
" Peace, let it be ! for I loved him, and love him forever : the
dead are not dead but alive."
If Browning is more intelligibly an optimist, it is be
cause he studies mankind from a scientific point of
view, keeping his own temper and spirits withal. He
has a more abiding and " saving faith " in the im
manence of a beneficent ruling power. Both these
poets have deepened and widened their outlook : the
one listens to the roll of the ages, and marks the
courses of the stars ; the other pierces the soul, to
find the secret of a universe in the microcosm, man.
Tennyson is the more impressed by that science
which observes the astronomic and cosmic whole of
nature, while biology and psychology are anticipated
by Browning and subjected to his usufruct.
When the laureate was raised to the peerage a
station which he twice declined in middle life he

A FIT BESTOWAL.
gained some attention from the satirists, and his ac
ceptance of rank no doubt was honestly bemoaned
by many sturdy radicals. It is difficult, nevertheless,
to find any violation of principle or taste in the re
ceipt by England's favorite and official poet of such
an honor, bestowed at the climax of his years and
fame. Republicans should bear in mind that the
republic of letters is the only one to which Alfred
Tennyson owed allegiance ; that he was the " first
citizen " of an ancient monarchy, which honored let
ters by gratefully conferring upon him its high tradi
tional award. It would be truckling for an Amer
ican, loyal to his own form of government, to receive
an aristocratic title from some foreign potentate.
Longfellow, for example, promptly declined an order
tendered him by the king of Italy. But a sense of
fitness, and even patriotism, should make it easy for
an Englishman, faithful to a constitutional monarchy,
to accept any well-earned dignity under that system.
In every country it is thought worth while for one
to be the founder of his family ; and in Great Britain
no able man could do more for descendants, to whom
he is not sure of bequeathing his talents, than by
handing down a class-privilege, even though it con
fers no additional glory upon the original winner.
Extreme British democrats, who openly or covertly
wish to change the form of government, and even
communists, are aware that Tennyson does not be
long to their ranks. He has been, as I long since
wrote, a liberal conservative : liberal in humanity and
progressive thought, strictly conservative in allegiance
to the national system. As for that, touch but the
territory, imperil the institutions, of Great Britain,
and Swinburne himself the pupil of Landor, Maz

424

BROWNING.
zini, and Hugo betrays the blood in his veins.
Tennyson, a liberal of the Maurice group, has been
cleverly styled by Whitman a " poet of feudalism " ;
he is a celebrator of the past, of sovereignty and
knighthood ; he is no lost leader, " just for a ribbon "
leaving some gallant cause forsworn or any song un
sung. In all fairness, his acceptance of rank savors
less of inconsistency than does the logic of those who
rail at the world for neglect of genius, and then up
braid them both for coming to an understanding.
As a final word about Lord Tennyson, a laureate
of thirty-seven years' service, it may be said that no
predecessor has filled his office with fewer lapses
from the quality of a poet. Southey's patriotic rub
bish was no better, and not much worse, than his
verse at large. Wordsworth, during the few years of
his incumbency, wrote little official verse. Tennyson
has freshened the greenness of the laurel ; a vivid
series of national odes and ballads is the result of
his journey as its wearer. That some of his perfunc
tory salutations and paans have been failures, not
ably the Jubilee ode of the current year, is evidence
that genius does not always obey orders. The Wel
lington ode, " The Charge of the Light Brigade," the
dedications of " In Memoriam " and the " Idyls," and
such noble ballads as those of " Grenville," " The
Revenge," " Lucknow " these are his vouchers for
the wreath, and, whether inspired by it or not, are
henceforth a secure portion of his country's song.
II.
Old lovers of Tennyson feel that he is best un
derstood by those who grew up with his poems, and

" THE INN ALBUM:'


profited by his advance to the mature art and power
of " In Memoriam " and the four chief " Idyls."
Browning began and continued in quite another way.
A neophyte might as well get hold of his middlelife work, and thence read backward and forward.
If one prefers to gain an introduction to the author
of The Inn Album from a sustained poem, rather than
from his lyrics, nothing better could be chosen than
that nervous, coherent work, the first in date of his
productions during the time we are considering. I re
call its effect upon one or two of my younger friends,
who ascribe to it their first sense of those profound
emotions which set the spirit free. Seldom is there
a work more inwrought with characterization, fateful
gathering, intense human passion, tragic action to
which the realistic scene and manners serve as height
ening foils, than this thrilling epic of men and women
whose destinies are compressed within a single day.
The tragedy ends with the death of two sinners, whose
souls are first laid bare. No one of Browning's works
is better proportioned, or less sophisticated in dic
tion, the latter, in truth, being never suffered to
divert attention from the movement and interest of
this electric novel in verse. It was quickly followed by
a various little book, Pacchiarotto. The poet now turns
upon his critics, with countering satire and a defense
of his hardy methods ; but he welcomes, in title-piece
and epilogue, " friends who are sound " to his Thirty^
Four Port, promising " nettlebroth " galore to the
feeble and maudlin. Of the shorter efforts, " A For
giveness " displays to the full his dramatic and psy
chological mastery. Its verse is modeled with the
strong right hand that painted " My Last Duchess," to
which it is in all respects a vigorous companionpiece.

425

426

" DRAMA TIC IDYLS."

A third translation from the Greek drama, the Aga


Agamem
non nf
memnon
of ^Eschylus, is marked by fidelity to the text,
AZuhylus,
gained through a free disregard of English idiom,
iS;7.
but scarcely has the sweetness and grace of " Balaustion " and " Aristophanes' Apology."
The volume entitled La Saisiaz : The Two Poets
of Croisic, like "The Inn Album," commends itself
to lay readers, being direct and forcible, with abun
dant food for thought. The opening poem, in the
" Locksley Hall " measure, bravely considers the
problem of mortal and immortal life. Its successor
reeks with humorous wisdom, irony, knowledge of
the world. An ideal lyric supplements them, in
scribed to the woman whose aid to the writer's song
is symbolized by the cricket's note that helped out
a minstrel's tune when his lyre had broken a string.
But the finest and richest display of Browning's
triune lyrical, narrative, and analytical vigor, which
he has given us since the memorable " Dramatic
Lyrics " and " Men and Women," is found in the
series of Dramatic Idyls. These silence critical com
plaint of the neglect or dilution of Browning's orig
inal genius. The most impressive of the metrical
tales are " Martin Ralph," " Clive " a marvelous
evocation, and " Ned Bratts " a Holbeinish con
jecture of the effect on a dull brutish hind of Bunyan's teachings. " Pheidippides," a figure of the
Athenian runner with news from Marathon, is superb,
and " Doctor
" quite unapproachable for jest and
satire. The story of " Muyldykeh " and his Arab steed
is already a classic. Always throughout these vivid
impersonations, as in " Ivan Ivanovitch " and " Pietro
of Albano," the magician's supreme intent is to
reveal

BROWNING'S RECENT WORKS.


" What 's under lock and key
Man's soul ! "
Jocoseria, made up of brief and sturdy poems, illus
trates again the author's habit of exploration through
all literatures for his texts and themes. After the
grim, pathetic ballad of " Donald " and the grimmer
" Christina and Monaldeschi," we have in " Jochannan Hakkadosh" the vital lessons of the book.
The Rabbi and the pupils, who find his sayings hard
indeed, are no inapt types of our modern poet and
his circle. As in " Paracelsus," Browning's favorite
theorem continues to be the soul's real victory
achieved in the apparent failures of earthly life.
His latter years are given more and more to the
consideration of eternal rather than temporal ques
tions. Under the guise of a Dervish he proffers,
in Ferishtah's Fancies, a sum of hopeful wisdom as
to the meaning of existence, the goodness of the
Creator. The thought, like all great thought, is sim
ple, yet put so subtle-wise as to make it well that
our latter-day Solomon has the fame that tempts a
world to study the riddling homilies of his old age.
To those who balk thereat no comfort is vouchsafed
except such as they find in " Pambo " of the preced
ing volume, for he still merrily "offends with his
tongue," though clearly an interpreter of the purest
theistic spirit of our time. My brief references to
Browning's plenteous aftermath close with his Parleyings with Certain People of Importance in Their
Day. His intellect disports itself more than ever in
these half dozen citations of far-away personages
whom he raises from the dead at will. The work is
capricious enough, but he does not forget, in the
most rugged and obscure passages, to give us inter-

427

"Jocostria," 1883.

" Ferishtak's Fartcies," 1884.

" Parley
ing*" tfc-i
1887.

428

BROWNISCS RHYMED VERSE.


ludes that prove his voice still unimpaired. " Gerard
de Lareise " is smooth and delicate enough for a
fastidious ear, with rare bits of song included, and
music itself receives expert attention in " Charles
Avison." The prologue and epilogue of this book
are not its least essential matters. All in all, how
ever, it is not so ultimate and satisfactory as one
could desire. At whatever worth he may rate the
clubs of quidnuncs associated to study him, he does
not disdain to make riddles for them, as in the Pre
lude, and to choose remote, obscure topics for their
discussion somewhat as the wizard Michael Scott,
compelled to supply tasks for his familiar, succeeded
at last by ordering him to make ropes out of seasand. He is right in affording them no special
clews, for that which, written in verse, can be con
veyed as well by a paraphrase certainly is not po
etry.
Most of the foregoing work, so varied and af
fluent, is in rhymed verse. Great respect is paid to
the observance of the rhyme, even though meaning
and measure halt for it. Whitman's Hebraic chant,
often vibrating with rhythmical harmony, is the out
come of a belief that rhymes are hackneyed and
trivial ; and as Browning's rhymes are not seldom
forced and artificial to a degree reached by no other
master, the question is asked why he should rhyme
at all, why he does not confine himself to his typi
cal blank-verse and other free-hand measures.
To this it might be replied that he was born a
poet, with the English lyrical ear and accentual in
stinct ; that he rhymes by nature, and exquisitely, as
we see from all his simpler melodies, and that he is
not the man to slight an intuitive note of expres

HIS TRAITS OF STYLE.


sion. With all his headlong tyranny over restraints
of form, an adherence to rhyme, as in the case of
Swinburne, is " a brake upon his speech " ; other
wise his fluency, although the result of endlessly
changeful thought, would quite outleap the effective
limits of art. That the brakes creak and groan is a
proof they are doing their work. But what of his
involved and parenthetical style ? A rule concerning
language is that it has power to formulate not only
problems of absolute geometry, but those of imagi
native thought ; and clearness of style has been a
grace of the first poets and thinkers. When Brown
ing's tangled syntax is involuntary, it may denote a
struggling process of thought, for the style is the
man. But, in defense of such of these "hard read
ings " as seem voluntary arid of aforethought, we
call to mind the oriental feeling that truth is most
oracular when couched in emblems and deep phrases.
Nature arms her sweetest kernels with a prickly
and resistful exterior, so that they are procured by
toil which gives them worth. This poet surrounds
his treasures with labyrinths and thorn-hedges that
stimulate the reader's onset. The habit is defensi
ble when the treasures are so genuine. To experts
and thinkers, who do not need a lure to make them
value the quest, such things are an irritation and
open to the disfavor shown by many who yield to
none in respect for Browning's creative power.
Yet it is plain that both the style and matter of
his work, after years of self-respecting adherence to
his own ways, have at last given occasion for the
most royal warrant of fame and appreciation ever
granted to poet or sage while still in the flesh. To
be sure there never was a time when such a result

429

430

THE INVASION OF ARCADY.


could more reasonably be expected. Our period ex
ceeds all others, even the Alexandrian, in literary
bustle and research. What organized phalanxes for
the study and annotation of our classics, of course,
and as is fitting, with the Shakespeare societies at
their head ! How rude the capture of Shelley, the
avatar of our ideality and lyrical feeling ! Old and
young, even the " little hordes " of Fourier's social
istic dream, divide the ethereal raiment of the poet's
poet, that each may bear away some shred of its
gossamer. Shelley's lifelong and reverent lovers, who
yield themselves silently to the imponderable, divine
beauty of his numbers, and who would as soon make
an autopsy of Lycidas himself as to approach his
verse with hook and scalpel, look with equal wonder
at the tribes which now claim their poet as if by
right of discovery and the select few who burden
his music with their notes and scholia. To its
transformation into a " cult " they apply the stric
ture of a famous preacher who was concerned at
the multiplication of cheap Bibles. The evangelical
bodies, he declared, by placing Holy Writ in every
lobby and corridor, have dispelled the sacred awe in
which it was held, and in fact have made it " as
common as a pack of cards." Feeling, taste, in
stinct, all are against making a text-book of Shel
ley's poetry, almost the last reliquary guarded, with
some right of distant kinship, by those who claim a
humble inheritance of song. The sudden uprising
of many Browning clubs is the latest symptom of the
rage for elucidation. The like of it has not been
witnessed since the days of the neo-Platonists and
grammarians ; nor were there a thousand printingpresses at the command of the Alexandrian scholi-

DROWNING SOCIETIES.
asts. Not only more than one University quadran
gle, but every mercantile town, from London where
the poet dwells to the farthest outpost of the west
ern continent, has its central Browning Society, from
which dependants radiate like the little spiders that
spin their tiny strands near the maternal web. Em
erson was a seer ; Browning is a virile poet and
scholar; but it has been the same with the follow
ers of both a Browning student of the first order
can do much for us, while one of the third or fourth
remove, whose degree is expressed algebraically as
Bn or ^Mb, may be and often is as prosaic a claim
ant to special illumination as one is apt to meet.
The "study" of Browning takes strong hold upon
theorists, analysts, didacticians, who care little for
poetry in itself, and who, like Chinese artists, pay
more respect to the facial dimensions of his Muse
than to her essential beauty and the divine light of
her eyes. The master himself may well view with
distrust certain phases of a movement originating
with his more-favored disciples; nor is poetry that
requires annotation in its own time surer, on that
account, of supremacy in the future. Perhaps the
best that can be said of this matter is that some
thing out of the common is needed to direct atten
tion to a great original genius, and to secure for a
poet, after his long experience of neglect, some prac
tical return for the fruits of his imagination.
A contrast between the objective, or classical,
dramatic mode and that of Browning is not deroga
tory to the resources of either. In the former, the
author's thinking is done outside of the work ; the
work itself, the product of thought, stands as a ere-

431

432

DRAMA TIC INTROSPECTION.


ation, with the details of its moulding unexplained.
The other exhibits the play of the constructor's
thought. The result, as affecting the imagination,
justifies the conventional aim to make us see, as
in real life, the outside of persons and events, con
cerning ourselves rather with actual speech and
movement than with a search for hidden influences,
esoteric laws. To read one of Browning's psychical
analyses is like consulting a watch that has a trans
parent glass, instead of a cap of gold, surmounting
the interior. We forget the beauty and proportions
of the jeweled timepiece, even its office as a chron
icler of time, and are absorbed by the intricate and
dexterous, rather than artistic, display of the works
within. Here is movement, here is curious and ex
act machinery here is the very soul of the thing,
no doubt ; but a watch of the kind that marks the
time as if by some will and guerdon of its own is
even more suggestive and often as satisfying to its
possessor. All the more, Browning represents the
introspective science of the new age. Regard one
of his men or women : you detect not only the
striking figure, the impassioned human speech and
conduct, but as if from some electric coil so intense
a light is shot beyond that every organ and integu
ment are revealed. You see the blood in its secretest channels, the convolutions and gyrations of the
molecular brain, all the mechanism that obeys the
impulse of the resultant personage. Attention is di
verted from the entire creation to the functions of
its parts. Events become of import chiefly for the
currents which promote them, or which they initiate.
Browning's genius has made this under-world a trib
utary of its domain. As a mind-reader, then, he is

TENNYSON, BROWNING, THEIR PERIOD.


the most dramatic of poets. The fact that, after
scrutinizing his personages, he translates the thoughts
of all into his own tongue, may lessen their objec
tive value, but those wonted to the language find
nothing better suited to their taste.
His judicial acceptance of things as they are is
largely a matter of temperament, and does not imply
that he is more devout and theistic, or a sounder op
timist, than his chief compeer. The broadening ef
fect of experience as a man of the world also has
much to do with it. Both Tennyson and Browning
are highly intellectual. The former's instinct for art
and beauty is supreme, and mental analytics yield to
them in his work. To Browning poetic effects, of
which he has proved himself a master, often are noth
ing but impedimenta, to be discarded when fairly in
pursuit of psychological discovery.
A conclusion with respect to Tennyson, in my re
view of his career from a much earlier point of time,
was that he would be regarded long hereafter as,
" all in all, the fullest representative " of the " refined
and complex Victorian age." To this I added that
he had carried his idyllic mode " to such perfection
that its cycle seems already near an end " and " a
new generation is calling for work of a different
order, for more vital passion and dramatic force."
After many years, he still seems to me the exponent
of the typical Victorian period that in which the
sentiment poetized in the " Idyls " and " In Memoriam" was at its height. It is equally true that
Browning was in reserve as the leader-elect of the
present succeeding time. The Queen is still on her
throne, but her reign outlasts the schools to which
her name belongs. New movements are initiated, and

433

Tennyson
and
Browning.

Their dif
fering re
lations to
the Period.

434

SWINBURNE.
Browning is their interpreter so far as poetic insight
is concerned. To this we only have to add that he
is an eminent example of the justice of our excep
tion to Taine's dogma of the invariable subjection
of an artist to his accidental conditions. He has
proved that his genius is of the kind that creates its
own environment and makes for itself a new atmos
phere, whether of heaven or of earth.
III.
Swinburne also has been a leader, particularly on
the side of form and expression, and through his
brilliant command of effects which novices are just
as sure to copy as young musicians are to adopt the
" methods " of a Chopin or a Liszt. Obvious ten
dencies of the new school reveal the influence of
Browning, modified structurally by Swinburne's lyrical
abandonment and feats of diction and rhythm.
As he reaches middle life, the volume of his pro
ductions becomes remarkable, putting to confusion
those who doubted his vitality and staying - power.
His second classical drama, Erectheus, is severely an
tique in mould, with strong text and choruses. But it
is relatively frigid, apart from common interest, and
lacks something of the fire and melody of " Atalanta."
The author's compulsive lyrical faculty, however, has
not ceased its exercise the resulting odes, songs,
and manifold brief poems having been collected chiefly
in the second series of Poems and Ballads and in
"Songs of the Springtides," "Studies in Song," "A
Century of Roundels," and " A Midsummer Holiday."
Their variety and splendor sustain the minstrel's early
promise ; any one of the collections would make a

HIS NEW LYRICAL VOLUMES.


reputation. If they have been greeted with less than
our old wonder and relish, it is due to the unforgetable
novelty of those first impressions, and to the profusion
of this poet's exhaustless outgiving. Masterpieces of
their kind among the new songs and ballads are the
" Ave atque Vale," of which I wrote in a former es
say, and " A Forsaken Garden." The translations
from Villon charm the ear with a witching sense
possibly unfelt by the vagabond balladist's contem
poraries. Swinburne is still at the head of British
elegiac and memorial poets. Witness the twin odes
in honor of Landor and Hugo, covering the entire
progress of their achievements, and the second ode
to Hugo, the lines to Mazzini, and other composi
tions in the highest mood of tributary song. A per
vasive element of these books is that relating to the
sea, of which their author is a familiar and votary.
One of them (as also the poem " By the North Sea")
is inscribed to his " best friend, Theodore Watts,"
the poet and critic to whom Mr. Swinburne is in
debted for loyal companionship and devotion. The
Songs of the Springtides are surcharged with end
less harmony of ocean winds and surges. " Thalassius," " On the Cliffs," " The Garden of Cymodoce,"
full of alliterative and billowy cadence, are fashioned
in a classical and nobly swelling mould. The unique
poem of Sappho, " On the Cliffs," was suggested by
the fancy that the nightingales still repeat fragments
of her Lesbian song. A Midsummer Holiday takes
us again by the sea and through the 'longshore lanes
of England ; its refrain " Our father Chaucer, here
we praise thy name " recalls the enduring fresh
ness of a poet to whom still the avowal can be made
that

435

436

SWINBURNE'S COMPLETED TRILOGY.


" Each year that England clothes herself with May
She takes thy likeness on her."
Elaborate and refined as all these pieces are, they
exhale a purely English atmosphere. A Century of
Roundels is the most simple and distinctive of the
lyrical collections. Among the noteworthy roundels
are several discoursing with Death, and those on
Autumn and Winter ; best of all, the clear-cut series
on " A Baby's Death." In the latter, as in the cradlesongs and other notes of infancy and childhood, he
is winning and tender in all his poems on age, rev
erent and eulogistic. The artistic motive of his polit
ical outbursts, at various crises, is quite subordinate
to their writer's impulsive views ; their satire and in
vective possibly act as safety-valves and are of in
terest to curious students of the poetic temperament
in its extremes.
Not a few consider Tristram of Lyonesse to be his
most attractive and ideal narrative poem. The con
ception of the Arthurian legend is distinct from that
of either Tennyson or Arnold, and the verse is rich
with desire, foreboding, and pathetic beauty. The
opening phrase, " The Sailing of the Swallow," is en
chanting ; the description of Iseult of Ireland is a
wonder, and the whole coil of burning love and pite
ous mischance was never before so marvelously
woven.
Of Swinburne's recent dramas, Mary Stuart com
pletes the most imposing Trilogy in modern literature,
and is, while less romantic than " Chastelard " and
less eloquent than " Bothwell," a fit successor to the
two. Its vigor is condensed and joined with a grav
ity becoming the firm hand of maturer years as it
depicts the culmination of this historic tragedy the

"MARINO FALIERO."
taking-off of a picturesque, impassioned, superbly self
ish type of royalty and womanhood. The author's
consistent ideal of Mary Stuart is formed by intui
tion and critical study, and is reasonably set forth in
his prose essay. The future will accept his concep
tion as justly interpreting the secret of her career.
In the Trilogy her fate, through the agency of Mary
Beaton, is made the predestined outcome of early and
heartless misdeeds, and dramatically ends the steady
process of the work.
Marino Faliero, postdating by sixty-five years By
ron's drama of that name, following the same chron
icle and with the same personages, is a direct chal
lenge to comparison. Both are fairly representative
of their authors. Neither is a stage-play : Byron's
was tested against his own judgment, and he found
no fault with the critics who thought his genius undramatic. There is no talk of love in either play,
except the innocent passion which Swinburne creates
between Bertuccio and the Duchess. Both poets make
the Doge's part o'ertop all others, but Byron light
ens Faliero's monologues with stage business, etc.,
and pays serious attention to the action of the piece.
Swinburne uses the higher poetic strain throughout ;
his language is heroic, the verse and diction are al
ways imposing, but proportion, background, and the
question of relative values obtain too little of his at
tention. All know the slovenly and unstudied char
acter of Byron's blank-verse. Swinburne adheres to
the type, equally finished and prodigal, to which he
has wonted us. In every sense he is a better work
man. But the directness and simplicity of Byron's
drama are to be considered. The death-speech which
he puts in Faliero's mouth, theatrical as it is, will

437

438

SWINBURNE'S PROSE MISCELLANIES.


continue memorable as a fine instance of Byronic
power. In the modern play the Doge's speech ex
tends to fifteen pages (with the chanting interludes),
and this directly after a trial-scene in which he has
done most of the talking. Half this rhythmical elo
quence would be more impressive than the whole.
In spite of Swinburne's deprecation of Lord By
ron, and his own more direct inheritance from Shel
ley, he has several of the former's traits : the scorn
of dullness and commonplace, faith in his own con
clusions, and the swift and bold mastery of a forci
ble theme. Continuing the habit of prose-writing, as
is the custom of the times, he has displayed his
scholarship and versatility in new critical essays.
The value of some of these such, for example, as
the prose dithyrambic on Hugo lies not so much
in their judicial quality as in those felicitous critical
epigrams which take the reader by their sudden in
sight and originality. " A Note on Charlotte Bronte "
is admirable in this way, for all its tendency to ex
tremes. The volume of Miscellanies contains, on
the whole, his soundest and most varied prose-writ
ing, much of it as well considered as one could de
sire, and expressing, brilliantly of course, the judg
ment of a poetic scholar in his dispassionate mood.
It is interesting to see how easily and royally Mr.
Swinburne keeps up his domination over an active
class of writers. His scholarship, indisputable talent,
and Napoleonic method of judgment and warfare
render him a kind of autocrat whom few of his
craft care to encounter openly, though specialists in
matters of research and criticism occasionally ven
ture on rebellion. Whatever ground he loses is lost
in consequence of a law already pointed out, which

STILLED VOICES.

439

operates in the case of a vein too rich and produc


tive. The torrent of his rhythm, beautiful and imag
inative as it is, satiates the public even animals
fed on too nutritious food will turn to bran and
husks for a relief. And the workings of his genius,
from its very force and individuality, are such as he
cannot be expected to vary or suspend.

IV.
young
ered
Death
inandour
has
oldoriginal
summoned
alike from
review.
the
withcycle
None
his of
impartial
was
poetsmore
considtouch
de staud
Vou:"'

plored
of
mosta unworldly
conjoint
than Rossetti,
school
and thenervously
of child
art of
andastral
exalted
minstrelsy,
light,
of founder
modern
the d'Rbsuih,
i883-

poets. No one has made a more definite, though


specific and limited, impression in his time. His
work was pursued for its own sake, yet the expres
sion of as rare a personality as the fire of Italy and
training of England could develop. A collection of
his lyrics, piously made by fitting hands, and the
critical mementos by Sharp and Hall Caine, render
it needful for me to add but little more. Among
the rhymes not in former collections, the finely wrought
mediaeval poem of " Rose-Mary " and the strong bal
lad of " The King's Tragedy " are prominent. There
are also a few characteristic minor songs and lyrics,
and at last the full series of quatorzains comprising
The House of Life, that wondrous rosary of impas
sioned sonnets of life, love, and death, so distinct
from Mrs. Browning's yet henceforth to be named
with
other hers
poetic
as no
soul,
lessthat
inspired
of the and
old memorable.
minstrel Home,
An-

440

"BREAK THE STRING


has passed away in its due season of years, and
therewith a bold and various dramatic bard, typically
English in his restless, independent nature. Laura
Dibalzo, a fruit of his ripe old age, though not so
equable and compact a work as " Cosmo de' Medici,"
is a tragedy befitting the hand of a friend of Landor
and Browning. Arthur O'Shaughnessy was cut off
in the midst of an active but scarcely brightening ca
reer. Songs of a Worker, the posthumous volume of
this young member of the Neo-Romantic group,
shows him in his graver and more humane moods,
but contains little better than the striking transla
tions from modern French poets with whom he was
thoroughly in rapport. Appreciative tributes to his
late brother-in-law are still appearing. Philip Marston's life and early death were very pathetic. There
is a touching sincerity in his poems, and their finish,
considering his blindness, was noteworthy from the
first. He had a sensitive and vibratory but coura
geous nature. Nor was the life of this suffering
writer, fostered always by choice and sympathetic as
sociates, without its compensations. Depth of feel
ing is evident throughout Wind- Voices, his last vol
ume. He wrote of it in one of his letters : " I can
at least say of these poems that they have come from
the heart." Among others who have joined the silent
majority, and whose later works call for no fresh re
marks, are Lord Houghton, George Eliot, Turner,
FitzGerald, Thornbury, Calverley, and the Dorsetshire
idyllist, William Barnes. Hawker, the sturdy Vicar
of Morwenstow, left the record of a unique character,
a few vigorous ballads, and the " Song of the West
ern Men." Miss Smedley was a delicate, thoughtful
poet, of the Tennysonian school, whose refined lyrics

FOLD MUSICS WING!"


were marked by feeling and quiet beauty. A collec
tion was recently made for the first time of Laman
Blanchard's verse. He was the long-ago friend of
Bulwer, Procter, and Browning, a journalist-poet and
humorist of the old type, who wrote some good son
nets and miscellaneous pieces of variable worth. A
book of selections, made last year by Percy Cot
ton, from the poetical works of the late Mortimer
Collins, receives its warrant through their merit.
Collins was a genuine poet within his range. "A
Greek Idyll," written years ago, is second only to
Dobson's " Autonoe." " The Ivory Gate " has cap
tivating original melody, a lyric that poets learn
by heart. One remembers kindly the natural and
even careless singers, such as Collins, who utter their
song without pretence or affectation, having sweet
voices, and because they can thus express fleeting
and spontaneous moods, and in no other way.
The reproduction, after half a century and in the
author's old age, of Wells's Joseph and his Brethren,
was a new example of the fact that both gods and
men conspire to preserve a work of genius. Rossetti
and Morley among others took part in this antemortem recognition of a poet neglected by his own
generation, who certainly had no ground for Cato's
protest against the arbitrament of the people of a time
different from that in which one has lived. His
poem, heralded by Swinburne's introduction with tem
pered praise, though long, diffuse, with various
prosaic interludes, and curiously revealing Wells's ab
solute lack of the sense of humor, is still an im
posing and dramatic narration, lavish with color and
notable for an old-English quality of diction and
verse. Its author had drunk so impartially at the

441
Laman
Blanchard:
1804-45.

Mortimer
Collins :
1827-76.

Charles
Jeremiah
Wells:
1800-79.

A restored
master
piece.

442

M. ARNOLD. W. MORRIS.
springs of Marlowe, Shakespeare, and Milton, that it
wants evenness of tone. But it was well worth re
viving,- and has excited enthusiasm even in this age
of research and discovery.

V.
The new poems of several authors discussed in the
body of this work introduce few notes that suggest
much comment or a reversal of early opinion. Pro
fessor Arnold has given us too little verse of late,
but his authority as a critic of modern tendencies
has steadily widened. Traversing my first notice of
him, and as in the case of Browning, I think it right
to set down a few qualifications. I feel that the re
gret and unrest which pervade some of his lyrical
verse, and which I thought opposed to the healthy
impulses of song, were in their own way as truly the
expression of Youth as the romanticism of Childe
Harold or Locksley Hall. That Arnold was the rep
resentative in his poetry, as he has been a leader
through his prose, of the questioning progress of the
day of a day whose perturbation of itself declares
a forward-looking spirit is now more plain to me.
Like Emerson in America, he was a teacher and
stimulator of many now conspicuous in fields of men
tal activity. A tribute is due, no less, to his most
ideal trait, the subtilty with which he responds to,
and almost expresses, the inexpressible the haunt
ing suggestions, the yearnings, of man and nature
the notes of starlight and shadow, the evasive mys
tery of what we are and "all that we behold."
The most objective of these poets, William Morris,
to whom I applied Hawthorne's phrase the Artist

MISS ROSSETTI. MRS. WEBSTER.


of the Beautiful, now devotes himself rather zealously
to the work of social reform, as if content no longer
to be "the idle singer of an empty day." Yet his
rapid production of verse has scarcely lagged. A
translation of the Aeneids of Virgil, in the sounding
measure of Chapman's " Iliads," while not verbally
archaic, does not fully translate in the sense of
making modern an epic that was thoroughly mod
ern in its own time. Morris, with his prodigious
facility, has completed a similar version of the Iliads,
now just published. The Story of Sigurd the Vohung
is perhaps his chief sustained work : a timely epic
in this reign of Wagner, built up from the German
Lied and surely with imposing effect :
" There was a dwelling of Kings, ere the world was waxen old ;
Dukes were the door-wards there, and the roofs were thatched
with gold."
A wonderful achievement, to fashion this monumental
work, after re-creating for us the classical and medie
val tales of Southern Europe and the Sagas of the
icy North. Of women poets, Miss Rossetti still finds
none beside her on the heights of spiritual vision.
The fanciful Masque of the Months, in A Pageant
and Other Poems, strengthens belief that her genius is
less visible through such constructions than in brief,
impassioned lyrics, stanzas like " Passing and
Glassing," and her sonnets, of which the series
entitled " Later Life " is a complement to that on
Love in an early volume. Of Mrs. Webster's new
dramas In a Day, a terse Greek tragedy, is the
most effective. The lyrics and pastoral romance of
Disguises are its best features. A Book of Rhyme adds
to the impression that, with all her uncommon gifts,
she is too versatile and facile; most of her poetry

443

444

MISS INGEL OW. A LUNGHA M, ETC.


is good, but she has yet to write a poem or drama
of the highest class. Jean Ingelow's Poems of the
Old Days and the New, a little graver than those of
her springtime, still have many skylark notes. Her
ambitious pieces, with the exception of " The WorldMartyr," owe their chief value to the songs which
they include. It is pleasant to find a general collec
tion of Songs, Ballads and Stories, by Allingham, an
other natural singer. He justly says that " these lit
tle songs, found here and there," are not the product
of the goose-wing or inkstand ;
" they came without search,
Were found as by chance."
Many will long retain their liking for the modest
poet of " The Fairies " and " Lovely Mary Donnelly."
Some genuine harbor-ballads, in a conjuring legen
dary vein, have been written by Dr. Garnett, whose
earlier work should have been noted in my original
text. Among the Wordsworthians, Aubrey de Vere
is the busiest survivor. His Legends of the Saxon
Saints and Foray of Queen Meave exhibit no change
of characteristics. A diffuse closet-drama, St. Thomas
of Canterbury, written from the church point of view,
did not preclude Tennyson from entering the same
field. Palgrave's Visions of England transcribes many
of the Gesta Romanorum in a great variety of
forms. " England Once More," at the close, is a
vigorous strain. It is odd at this late day to find a
critic, who compiled the Golden Treasury, burdening
his own poetry with notes, and in a long, collegiate
preface defending very simple forms of English
metre. Dr. Hake's Legends of the Morrow and
Maiden Ecstasy show him as the same quaint with
drawn maker of symbolic verse ; a little more vari

WA RREN. PA YNE. DOMETT, ETC.


ous than of old, yet scarcely to be read at a stretch.
In a stray poem of his, " Farewell to Nature," the
" pathetic fallacy " of the soliloquists receives the
best treatment which any writer has given it.
In these days it is probably a mistake to compose
a tragedy upon the scale of The Soldier of Fortune
(1876), by J. Leicester Warren, the author of "Philoctetes." In length it approaches " Bothwell," and
Warren certainly betrays an admiration of Swin
burne's verse. But this drama is written throughout
with care and vigor, and often with high eloquence,
and the lover of true poetry will find much to re
ward him in its scenes. Pygmalion and Silenus, by
Woolner, have no more absolute poetic motive than
his early pieces : cold as the marble of his sculpture,
they would be didactic but for the nature of their
themes. John Payne, at the date of his last collec
tion, was still a Neo-Romantic extremist. Neither
in the powerful and uncanny Lautrec, nor in his New
Poems, is there any more trace of realism or modernness than appears in old tapestry or a vellum
book of lays. He is a lyrical Ruskin as concerns
latter-day innovations. His scholarship and gift for
translation into English verse and prose have been
memorably utilized for his renderings of Villon, The
Thousand Nights and One Night, etc. My early
remarks on Domett apply to the well-named collec
tion of his Flotsam and Jetsam, which includes " A
Christmas Hymn, New Style," and " Cripplegate "
a poem concerning Milton. Robert Buchanan also
has made no new departure. His volume of 1882
confirms our respect for him as a balladist, and he
has done few better things than " The Lights of
Leith." Of late he has been scornful of the Muse

445

446

SCOTT. PA TMORE. F.M VERS. NOEL.


and her Arcadian haunts and minstrels, but has ex
tended with success his efforts as a playwright, for
which a melodramatic tendency, that does not im
prove his novels, has given him undoubted qualifica
tions.
Definite advances have been scored, however, by
a few of these our old acquaintances. A Poefs Har
vest Home, by the veteran artist Bell Scott, is a
century of precious gems in verse, not one of which
is without beauty. The quaintness that would be af
fectation in younger men is his by nature, and
withal a taste and intellect resembling Landor's. It
is rare that so poetic a little book appears. Coven
try Patmore's strain, in the new portions of his
Florilegiutn Amantis, is "of a higher mood" than
his early realism of the grass-plot and drawing-room.
The odes first published as "The Unknown Eros,"
in irregular but stately measures, have a fine re
served power visible also in the striking apostro
phes to England. His poem to " My Little Son " is
exquisitely touching. The Renewal of Youth, by
Frederick Myers, bears out the promise of his early
prime. He is of the school that regards song as a
means of expression, and depends on thought and
feeling to animate the simplest forms. The " Stan
zas on Mr. Watts's Collected Works " are akin to
Parsons's lines on Dante high praise indeed ; and
there is a nobility of tone even in his meditative
pieces which reveals an unusual character. Roden
Noel is another of whom good words may be hon
estly said not so much for his more labored vol
umes, The Red Flag, and The House of Ravensburg
a semi-drama ; but the utterances found in A Little
Child's Monument spring from the inmost depths of

MEREDITH. PROLIFIC NEW WRITERS.

447

a poet's heart, whose impulsive feeling always must


constitute its strongest appeal. The most suggestive
verse latterly put forth by writers named in this section
is that of Meredith, whose touch never yet lacked George
individuality. He is another of those novelists, such Meredith.
as Kingsley and Thackeray, quite at home on the
poet's own ground. His lyrics Of the Joy of Earth
(to which a complemental series is announced) have
a purpose that reveals itself to one willing to ponder
on their often involved, always thought-hoarding lines.
He is, with a difference, the Emerson of English
poets: "The Woods of Westermain " and "The
Lark Ascending " are in veritable harmony with our
Concord " Woodnotes." Meredith's talent for melody
and structure is sufficient. Even his sonnets are
welcome, and whether aptly or carelessly put to
gether; for in each there is some deep or majestic
thought, while in fluent measures he runs too much
at large. " Lucifer in Starlight " and " The Spirit of
Shakespeare " add to our list of important sonnets,
and come from one who, in his own phrase, has
"never stood at Fortune's beck."
VI.
Of the poets whose books have appeared mainly
since the date of our earlier review, a few are con
spicuous for the extent of their work, and demand
attention in any notice of the time. What are their
respective claims to the favor awarded leaders whom
they rival in productiveness ?
Symonds is fairly typical of the best results of the
English university training. He is an exemplar of
taste ; this, and liberal culture, joined with fine per-

Prolific

John
A ddington
Symonds:
1840-

448

SYMONDS.
ceptive faculties, endow a writer who has the respect
of lovers of the beautiful for his service as a guide
to its history and masterpieces. A wealth of lan
guage and material sustains his prose explorations in
the renaissance, his Grecian and Italian sketches, his
charming discourse of the Greek poets and of the
Italian and other literatures. He has given us com
plete and almost ideal translations of the sonnets
of Angelo and Campanella. Coming to his original
verse, we again see what taste and sympathy can do
for a receptive nature ; all, in fact, that they can do
toward the making of a poet born, not with genius,
but with a facile and persistent bent for art. The
division between friendship and love is no more ab
solute, as not of degree but of kind, than that between
the connoisseur and the most careless but impassioned
poet. Symonds recognizes this in a thoroughbred pref
ace to Many Moods, a book covering the verses of
fifteen years. He proffers attractive work, good hand
ling of the slow metres, and an Italian modification
of the antique feeling. There is some lyrical quality
in his " Spring Songs." Almost the same remarks
apply to a later volume, New and Old. Its atmos
phere, landscape, and notes of sympathy therewith
are so unEnglish that one must possess the author's
latinesque training to feel them adequately. We have
sequences of polished sonnets in the Animi Figura
and its interpreter, Vagabundi Libellus. These studies
of a "beauty-loving and impulsive, but at the same
time self-tormenting and conscientious mind " are his
most satisfactory efforts in verse ; but if their emo
tions are, as he avows, " imagined," he reasons too
curiously for a poet. " Stella " has a right to com
plain of his hero, and it is no wonder she went mad.

EDWIN ARNOLD.
His poems are suggestive to careful students only, in
spite of their exquisite word-painting and the merit
of sonnets like those on " The Thought of Death."
Admiring the finish of them all, we try in vain to re
call the one abiding piece or stanza. Here is scholar's
work of the first order, the outcome of knowledge
and a sense of beauty. Perhaps the author would
have succeeded as well as a painter, sculptor, or
architect, for in any direction taste would be his main
stay. Nothing can be happier than his rendering, with
comments, of the mediaeval Latin Students' Songs,
neatly entitled Wine, Woman and Song ; and in the
prose " Italian By-ways " his critical touch is so light
and rare that we are thankful for his companion
ship.
Those who wish to make more than a ripple on
the stream may profit by the example of Edwin
Arnold. During the latest quarter of a busy life he
has gained a respectful hearing in his own country
and something like fame in America. He is not a
creative poet, yet the success of his Asiatic legends
is due to more than an attractive dressing-up of the
commonplace. He has zest, learning, industry, and
an instinct for color and picturesqueness strength
ened through absorption of the Oriental poetry, by
turns fanciful and sublime. Above all, he shows the
advantage of new ground, or of ground newly sur
veyed, and an interest in his Subject which is con
tagious. There is a man behind his cantos, and a
man clever enough to move in the latest direction
of our unsettled taste and thought. A distinct theme
and motive, skilfully followed, are the next best things
to inventive power. The Light of Asia was not an
ordinary production. With The Indian Song of Songs

449

45o

ALFRED AUSTIN.
and Pearls of the Faith it formed a triune exposition,
on the poetic side, of the Hindoo and Arabian theolo
gies. Probably Arnold's ideals of Buddhism, even of
Islamism. insensibly spring from a western conception,
but he conveys them with sensuous warmth and much
artistic skill. In these books and the translations
from the Mahabharata, he works an old vein in a
new way. Both the accuracy and ethics of his Ori
ental pieces have been lauded and attacked with equal
vehemence. They have received great attention in
that section of the United States where discussion is
most " advanced " and speculative, and where Bud
dhism and theosophy are just now indiscriminately
a fashion, and likely to pass away as have many fash
ions that led up to them. Arnold's longer works may
soon be laid aside, but such a lyric as " After Death
in Arabia," whether original or a paraphrase, will be
treasured for its genuine beauty and serene pledges
to human faith and hope.
Alfred Austin's essays on u The Poetry of the
Period " justly attracted notice. They were epigram
matic, conceived in a logical if disciplinary spirit, and
almost the first severe criticism to which our " chief
musicians " have been subjected. Here was one who
dared to lay his hand on the sacred images. He bore
down mercilessly upon " the feminine, narrow, domes
ticated, timorous " verse of the day, calling Tennyson
feminine, Browning studious, Whitman noisy and
chaotic, Swinburne and Morris not great because the
times are bad, but only less tedious than the rest.
While an iconoclast, his effort was constructive in its
demand for the movement and passion that have an
imated more virile eras. When so lusty a critic him
self came out as a poet, it fairly might have been

ALFRED AUSTIN.

451

expected that he would at least, whatever his demerits,


avoid the tameness thus deplored. But movement and
the divine fire are precisely what are lacking in Mr.
Austin's respectable and somewhat labored books of
doubtless
printed
to
verse.
the poem.
The
section,
would
Human
The
wish
" Madonna's
whole
to
Tragedy,
berequires
judged,
Child,"
a work
ten
includes
which
thousand
by which
is
an alines,
early
key
he i8?6"Tkt
jyjyn

cast in ottava rima and other standard forms. The


Georgian measures are here, but not their force and
glow. The movement is of the slowest, the philos
ophy prudish, and the story hard to follow : lovers
are kept from marriage by religious zeal ; they don
the Red Cross, travel and talk interminably, and fi
nally are shot, and die in each other's arms to the
great comfort of the reader. "Savonarola" is abet
ter work, a studious tragedy, but not relieved by
humor and realism, and with few touches that are
imaginative. The title - piece of At the Gate of the
Convent is artistic and interesting, and is followed by
a good deal of contemplative verse, mostly lyrical in
form, with the lofty ode not slighted. What we miss
is the incense of divine poesy. The author's satirical
interludes have point, and I have seen graceful lyrics
from his pen ; but his ambitious verse, on whatever
principle composed, is not of the class that reaches
the popular heart, nor likely, on the other hand, to
capture a select group of votaries like those so loyal
from the outset to Rossetti and Browning.
In every generation there is some maker of books Lewis
who, without being a great writer, figures as such in
his own and other minds. His thorough belief in his
function and his hold upon a faithful constituency
are things which men of better parts may not envy

452

LEWIS MORRIS.
him, yet find beyond their reach. Lewis Morris with
his Epic of Hades, Gwen, Songs of Two Worlds, and
other works of many editions, seems to be a writer
whose fluent verse satisfies the popular need for rhyth
mical diet. Certain observances usually are noted in
poetry of this kind. Its author handles a pretentious
theme, and at much length, thus giving his effort
an air of importance. He falls into the manner of
popular models, and with great facility. He has a
story to tell, or some lesson to teach, in all cases
trite enough to an expert, but more impressive to the
multitude than the expert suspects. Finally, he has
zeal and measureless industry, and takes himself more
seriously than if he were a sensitive and less robust
personage. It would be wrong to say that Mr. Mor
ris's verse is no better than that of Pollok, Tupper,
and Bickersteth. But he bears to this, the most re
fined of periods, very nearly the same relation which
they bore respectively to their own. " The Epic of
Hades " is written in diluted Tennysonian verse, its
merit lying in simplicity and avoidance of affecta
tions. It is, however, only a metrical restatement of
the Greek mythology according to Lempriere, and
without that magic transmutation which alone jus
tifies a resmelting of the antique. " Gwen " is a drama
in monologue an English love-story, and, as far as
" Maud " is dramatic, an attenuated Maud, without
novelty of form or incident. In few of Morris's poems
is there the radiant spirit which floods a word, a line,
a passage, with essential meaning. In "The Ode of
Life " he girds himself for a Pindaric effort, and
strives with much grandiloquence to display the en
tire panorama of existence. His truest poetry, though
neither he nor his admirers may so regard it, is found

BARLOW SMITH. MRS. SINGLETON.


among the " Songs of Two Worlds " and Songs Un
sung, and chiefly in simple pieces like "The Organ
Boy." A longer poem, " Clytemnestra in Paris,"
should be mentioned for its originality and interest ;
it is based on the trial reports of a recent murder,
and shows the worth of a vivid subject and a con
ception due solely to the poet. Morris also is for
cible, though prolix, in some of his speculative theses,
but leaves an impression of infallibility and that there
are few subjects he would hesitate to preempt.
A survey of these energetic writers leads to the
inference that the more ambitious recent efforts do
not acquaint us with the new poets who possess the
greatest delicacy of hand and vision, and are subject
to the most spiritual moods. Barlow's many volumes,
and the successive books of Walter Smith, author of
Olrig Grange, Hilda, Kildrostan, etc., only strengthen
this inference. The vogue of Dr. Smith's produc
tions with a certain class is due to the fact, that,
like Mrs. (" Violet Fane ") Singleton's very feminine
poem of Denzil Place, each is what she honestly calls
the latter a story in verse. They are metrical novel
ettes, with the excess of interest and liveliness in
favor of the lady, who gives zest to her romance by
a warmth of realism, upon which the Scotch idyllist
would doubtless blush to venture. His North Country
Folk contains some good short pieces. Mrs. Single
ton's Queen of the Fairies is a tender story, purely
and simply told. Her drama, Anthony Babington, is
very creditable, above the common range of woman's
work, which scarcely can be said of her miscellaneous
lyrics. Her love-poetry is of all grades, and not al
ways in the best taste. Mrs. Pfeiffer has been an
untiring producer of verse of a different cast. Her

453

454

MRS. PFEIFFER.MRS. KI.XG. MUXBY.


early Poems embraced, besides a good ode " To the
Teuton Woman." one or two striking ballads which
indicated her natural bent. since developed in " The
Fight at Rorke's Drift," and other spirited pieces.
Under the Aspens is perhaps her most enjoyable col
lection. Her sonnets are thoughtful and intelligible,
in this wise differing from the work of many sonnetmongers, and those on Shelley and George Eliot are
well worth preservation. In her more arduous flights
she often fails, but there is an air of refinement and
sincerity in much that comes from her pen.
Mrs. Hamilton King's long poem, The Disciples, has
been widely' read. Four disciples of Mazzini narrate,
chiefly in blank-verse and rhymed heroics, the story
of Garibaldi. The influence of the two Brownings is
risible in Mrs. King's style. Her chief poem, the
story of Fra Ugo Bassi, though too long, has strong
passages, and effective pictures of Italian and Sicil
ian scenery. Her defects are a lack of condensed
vigor and imagination.
There are one or two marked exceptions to the in
ference just now drawn. When Mr. Munby's Dorothy
appeared, sound-minded readers had a sense of re
freshment. It was a novel pleasure to light upon a
complete and wholesome poem, faithfully and winningly going at its purpose, that of depicting pastoral
English scenes and extolling health and strength as
elements of beauty in woman. The heroine of this
unique " country story in elegiac verse " is genuine
as one of Millet's peasant-girls or Winslow Homer's
fisher-maidens. Seldom, nowadays, do we find such
pictures of farm-life, bucolic work and sports, outside
of Hardy's and Blackmore's novels. The ploughingscene is a subject for a painter, and he could find,

JAMES THOMSON.
indeed, a score of charming themes in this one
poem. Dorothy's sweet face and noble bearing re
quire, it is true, the device of an aristocratic father
hood, and there is possibly an implication of the
benefits of cross-breeding. Munby equals Millet in
honest candor, but I think he goes beyond nature in
the one blemish of his idyl ; there is an over-coarse
ness in giving even a plough-girl hands that would
disgust a navvy or pitman. As might be expected of
the poet who wrote " Doris," that lovely pastoral, he
is an artist, and has achieved a difficult feat in popu
larizing his elegiac distiches.
A second exception is that of a man to whom a
long chapter might be devoted, and whose life and
writings, I doubt not, will be subjects of recurring
interest during years to come. For it may almost
be said of the late James Thomson, author of The
City of Dreadful Night, that he was the English Poe.
Not only in his command of measures, his weird im
aginings, intellectual power and gloom, but with re
spect to his errant yet earnest temper, his isolation,
and divergence from the ways of society as now con
stituted, and very strangely also in the successive
chances of his life so poor and proud, in his final
decline through unfortunate habits and infirmities,
even to the sad coincidence of his death in a hos
pital, do the man, his genius, and career afford an
almost startling parallel to what we know of our
poet of "the grotesque and arabesque." Shelley,
Heine, Leopardi, Schopenhauer, such were the writ
ers whom Thomson valued most, and whose influence
is visible in his poetry. Yet the production already
mentioned, and many others, have traits which are
not found elsewhere in prose or verse. So much

455

456

" THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT?


might be said of Thomson's work that I scarcely
ought to touch upon it here. But "The City of
Dreadful Night" may be characterized as a sombre,
darkly wrought composition toned to a minor key
from which it never varies. It is a mystical allegory,
the outgrowth of broodings on hopelessness and
spiritual desolation. The legend of Durer's Melan
cholia is marvelously transcribed, and the isometric
interlude, " As I came through the Desert thus it
was," is only surpassed by Browning's " Childe Ro
land." The cup of pessimism, with all its conjuring
bitterness, is drunk to the dregs in this enshrouded,
and again lurid, but always remarkable poem. We
have Omar Khayyam's bewilderment, without his ep
icurean compensations. VanJs Story, the title-piece
of another volume, is similarly impressive, and minor
lyrics are worth study for their intenseness and fre
quent strange beauty. "Vane's Story," though melo
dramatic, and curiously outspoken in its notion of
life and death, its opposition to ordinary views, is
not easily forgotten. On the side of artistic poetry
we have the Arabic love-tale of "Weddah," and
" Two Lovers " a beautiful legend in quatrains.
No one can read these, or the passionate " Mater
Tenebrarum," or such a rhapsody as " He heard
Her Sing," surcharged with melody and fire, without
feeling that here was a true and foreordained poet.
More profuse than Poe, less careful of his art, often
purposely and effectively coarse, he holds a place of
his own. He was a natural come-outer, and declared
for all sorts and conditions of men, independently of
rank or record. At times he proved, by such verses
as " Sunday at Hampstead " and " Sunday on the
River," that a blither nature underlay his gloom, and

RADICAL AND ALTRUISTIC VERSE.


that happy experiences would have made his song
less pessimistic. But if ever a poet learned in suffer
ing, it was he, and if the cup had passed from him
we should have lost some powerful and distinctive
verse. The posthumous volume, A Voice from the
Nile, contains, with a friendly memoir by Bertram
Dobell, the fugitive productions of Thomson's early
and later years.
What may be termed the poetry of conviction is
not yet without a few representatives. Of these Call,
the author of Reverberations and Golden Histories, is
the most facile and poetic. Transcendentalism and
positivism are curiously blended in his utterance, and
he was one of the first after Emerson to recognize the
scientific movement on its imaginative side. He has
written, also, verse of an ideal kind, including some
winning lyrics. One of the latter, " In Summer when
the Days were long," is to be found in anthologies,
and usually without the author's name. Miss Bevington's Poems, Lyrics, and Sonnets largely consist of ear
nest, but troubled, speculative verse. Miss Blind is
another altruistic writer whose work, in The Prophecy
of Saint Olan, has feeling, but is a trifle monotonous.
Her later volume, The Heather on Fire, shows a de
cided gain in vigor and the art of picturesque wordpainting. The radical and rebellious lyrics of Clarke,
the young author of Storm-Drift, evince talent, but
his well-told " Story of Salerno " betrays a willing
ness to take risks in an ultimately profitless direc
tion.

457

458

VARIOUS RECENT POETS.

VII.
The poetry of many recent authors is still to be
considered. They scarcely can be said to initiate a
new school, or to divide themselves into groups like
those formed by the minor poets of a slightly earlier
time. Listening to various masters, and feeling the
absence just now of any special tone or drift, more
than one new aspirant essays some note of his own.
Their very lack of assumption, and failure to claim
by bold efforts a share of the attention secured by
the novelists, imply a tacit acknowledgment that po
etry cannot maintain at the moment its former dom
inance in the English world of letters. This is an
unpromising attitude ; but if they do not exhibit the
ardent, full-throated confidence that begets leadership,
there still are not a few who devote themselves to
ideal beauty, and sing, in spite of discouragements,
because the song is in them. They bear in one re
spect a mutual likeness. Though not given to the
technical freaks of the recent art-extremists, the work
of all displays a finish unknown at the outset of the
Victorian period. The art of dexterous verse-making
is so established that the neophyte has it at com
mand. As with the technics of modern instrumental
music, it is within common reach and not a subject
for much remark.
Gosse, whom the public first knew as a poet, and
who has become prominent as a literary scholar and
critic, has not suffered general authorship to hinder
his more ideal efforts for any length of time. That
he is an attractive and competent master of English
prose the leading journals and magazines bear con
stant witness, no less than his " Studies in Northern

EDMUND GOSSE.
Literature," his edition of Gray, lectures on poetry,
and other essays, biographies, and contributions to
works that are richer for his aid. All this prose
matter has been refined and bettered by his poetic
sensibility. And as a poet, the title of the first
book for which he was sole sponsor, On Viol and
Flute, hints of his early quality. Though plainly
alive to the renaissance movement, it was full of
young blood and tuneful impulse ; its contents apper
taining to music, art, love, and the Norse legendary
so familiar to him. His New Poems, six years later
in date, are simpler, more restrained and meditative.
They are deftly finished, pure and cool, a degree too
cool for current taste. His classical sonnets from
the first he has been a good sonneteer exhibit all
these traits. He has a strong and logical sense of
form, while his color is keyed to the tranquil and
secondary, rather than the sensuous primitive tones.
A grace in which he has few equals is the fidelity
to nature of his pastorals and lyrics. There is true
and sweet landscape, the very spirit of the English
coppices, rivers, and moors, in his quiet pieces.
Successful with the French forms which he did much
to introduce, he uses them sparingly ; in fact, he
seldom or never plays the tricks of the extreme decorationists, but trusts to the force of his thoughts
and impressions. The contents of the volume, Firdausi in Exile, may be taken, I suppose, as his most
mature and varied work, for the early drama of
" King Erik," though creditably dqne and on a
theme quite native to him, does not show his bent
to be strongly dramatic. Reviewing his verse, one
finds a genuine feeling for nature, and subtile ideal
ity, in " Sunshine before Sunrise," "The Whitethroat,"

459

460

W. S. BLUNT. ERIC MA CKA Y.


"Lying in the Grass," "The Shepherd of the
Thames," "Obermann Yet Again." His "Theocri
tus " has delicious melody and charm. There is a
return in his longer poems, " Firdausi " and " The
Island of the Blest," to the Italian method of Hunt
and Keats. Gosse is an example of the latter-day
poet who does so well and learnedly in prose as
scarcely to obtain full credit for his natural poetic
gift. His verse, like that of Arnold, with whom its
spirit is allied, grows on one by acquaintance. It is
not often of a swift and lyrical character ; yet that
he can be both resonant and picturesque is evident
from a vigorous ballad, "The Cruise of the Rover,"
which will bear reading with the sea-ballads of Ten
nyson and Kingsley, and of itself bestows upon its
author the name of poet.
Blunt's Love Sonnets of Proteus are interesting as
the artistic and sole utterance of their composer
the record, whether personal or not, of a man's suc
cessive love - experiences. This series of sonnets
comes from one guided by the foremost English mas
ter, yet they are idiosyncratic and do not betray a
weak or inexpert hand. Their savor of artificiality
disappears when the writer ceases to be introspec
tive, as in the fresh and wholesome sonnet on Gi
braltar at the close. While the composition of these
Protean verses seems to have been, as a man's love
is said to be, an episode, it is plain that The Love
Letters of a Violinist and Other Poems (1885), by Eric
Mackay, are the handiwork of a brilliant metrical artist
and poet born. It requires an effort to acknowledge
this, after reading the preposterous " Introductory
Notice " with which the author permits some absurd
friend to preface the "Canterbury" edition of his

"MICHAEL FIELD:
book. Despite, however, the flaunting bush displayed
at the portal, the wine within is rich and brimming,
and of an exhilarating flavor. The series of Love
Letters in six-line stanzas, while confessedly of the
ecstatic virtuoso-type, is a beautiful and passionate
work : its beauty that of construction, language, im
agery, its passion characteristic of the artistic na
ture, and while intensely human, free from any
taint of vulgar coarseness. The poem is quite orig
inal, its manner Elizabethan, freshened by a resort
to the Italian fountain from which the clearest
streams of English song so often have flowed.
Mackay's poetic ability is of varied range. The
appended studies and lyrics, though conspicuously
uneven, all have quality. He is a natural lyrist,
with a singing faculty, a novel metrical turn, such
as few recent lyrists have at command. In some of
his pieces we come suddenly upon a prosaic, almost
grotesque, fault of expression ; but there is a fine
impulsive spirit animating all. With the very strik
ing poem of " Mary Arden " we at last have, to apply
Lowell's phrase, something new said of Shakespeare,
and it is said sweetly and imaginatively. It is a pity
that there was any clap-trap in the early heralding
of Athese
claimpoems,
to regard
for they
wasdo at
notonce
standestablished
in need of by
it.
" Michael Field," through her first volume, embrac
ing the dramas of Callirhoe and Fair Rosamond. It
seemed a reoccupation of Swinburne's early ground,
but this was only true with respect to the choice of
themes. " Callirhoe " is classical merely in subject
and time, and is treated in a modern way, the char
acters being living men and women with a language
compact of beauty and imagination. " Fair Rosa

ROBERT BRIDGES.
mond " is brief, strong ; the culminating act of a
tragic scheme that has beguiled great artists to its
handling. The dramas in this writers second book,
TTu Father's Tragedy, etc, reveal the same vigorous
touch, but are diffuse and lack contrasting lights and
shades ; there is no humor, speech and action are
always at concert-pitch. Their diction, however, is
very original. Often an epithet carries force, and is
used in an entirely fresh way. This dramatist lacks
proportion ; her manner betokens close study of the
Elizabethans, but of the minor ones rather than the
greatest. Her work is notable for its freedom, even
audacity, and contrasts in all respects with that of
Tennyson so correct of style and proportion, yet
without natural dramatic fire. Her advance in Bru
tus Ultor is not of the right kind. It seems as if
she hunted history for plots and themes. This is a
Roman tragedy, compressed and over-virile even
coarse at times, as if the effort to speak as a man
were a forced one. " Michael Field " is ambitious
and has warrant for it. Her motto should be
" strength and beauty," and not strength alone. The
Nero of Robert Bridges, an historical tragedy of the
emperor's early reign, with narrower extremes of
passion, is to my mind a more essentially virile
work. There is a nobler severity in dialogue, which
merits the name of Roman. The diction and blankverse are restrained but impressive. The characters
of Nero, Poppaea, Seneca, Agrippina, are distinctly
drawn. While in a sense conventional, " Nero "
shows the mark of a selfpoised, confident hand. A
few of the lyrics in Bridges' eclectic and privately
printed volume of 1884 strengthen my opinion that
he is a very ideal and artistic poet. The elegy "I

R. W. DIXON. MISS ROBINSON.


have loved flowers that fade " is matchless in its
way, apparently old in feeling yet perfectly original ;
and some of his songs rival it in their brief melody.
Canon Dixon's early work betrayed the close affin
ity between the new ecclesiasticism and the methods
of Rossetti. His Odes and Eclogues, on the other
hand, are the most extreme type of Anglo-classic
verse, that peculiar grafting of modern thought
upon the Grecian stock in which Arnold was a lead
ing expert, and which is so fascinating to a scholarpoet. His latest lyrics have a peculiar wandering
beauty. All his work is finished to a notable de
gree. Dixon and Bridges at this distance appear to
be the chief lights of a quaintly esoteric Oxford
School.
Miss Robinson's verse is a delicate spray, en
gendered by influences which began with Ruskin
and the pre-Raphaelites, and in the end supplied
the motive of British taste in plastic and decorative
art, in letters, and in all the refinements of social
life. She shows the effect of culture upon an im
pressible feminine nature, placed among devotees
of the beautiful, and breathing its atmosphere from
her childhood. Her classical studies were like those
of Mrs. Browning, with an aesthetic training super
added that was not obtainable in Mrs. Browning's
time. Her first little book, A Handful of Honey
suckle, bears the obvious impress of Rossetti, a
shoot from his garden, but with new and fragrant
blossoms of its own. The lyrics appended to her
next work a praiseworthy translation of The
Crowned Hippolytus were of a maturer cast. Af
terward, applying her gift to humane transcripts of
real life, she wrote The New Arcadia, a group of

463

THEODORE WATTS.
ballads in behalf of suffering womanhood and Eng
land's poor. Doubtless this was too grave an exper
imental task, for in turning at last to Italy, and its
rispetti and stornelli, she seems thoroughly at home.
Her book of songs, An Italian Garden, is the most
essentially poetic of her works thus far. It breathes
the Anglo-Italian spirit which is in fact her own.
The rispetti forming her wreath of Tuscan cypress,
with their beauty and sadness, are in every way
characteristic of this poet, and in her most sugges
tive vein. Meanwhile her acquirements enable her
to take an active part in the critical and biographi
cal industries which the inevitable book-purveyor now
opens for every rising author. Of her sister poets
not yet mentioned, Mrs. Liddell and Miss Nesbit
deserve notice. The former's "Songs in Minor
Keys " are suffused with deep religious feeling, al
ways expressed in good taste. Miss Nesbit's " Lays
and Legends " suggest immature but promising indi
viduality. She is capable of strong emotion, which
is most effective in her shorter lays.
Watts, the scholarly critic of poetry and romantic
art, and a frequent contributor of verse to the liter
ary journals, has thus far made no public collection
of his poems. My knowledge of them is confined
to some very perfect sonnets a form of verse in
which he is a natural and acknowledged master
and a few lyrics of an elevated type. His ode to a
Caged Petrel shows an eloquent method and a per
ception of Nature's grander aspects. He apparently
seeks to revive the broad feeling of the Georgian
leaders ; at all events, his touch is quite independent
of any bias derived from the eminent poets with
whom his life has been closely associated. Among

WA TSON. LEE-HAMIL TON. E. MYERS.


the many writers of good sonnets I may mention
Caine Rossetti's young friend and memorialist.
Professor Dowden, whose critical work is always of a
high order, has published a volume of poems, from
which two or three imaginative examples of the same
class have met my eye.
Watson, judging from The Prince's Quest, is a dis
ciple of Morris and a good one a poet of slow
movement, from whom we have also careful sonnets
and Landorian quatrains. Lee - Hamilton's varied
Poems and Transcripts, with the studies in Apollo and
Marsyas, remind one of the sculptor-poet Story by
their reflection of Browning's manner ; yet where he
is Browningesque or Rossettian it is usually because
the subject cannot be so well treated in another way.
He has a taste for the psychologically-dramatic, and
usually interests the reader. " The Bride of Porphy
rin " and " The Wonder of the World " are far from
commonplace, and his sonnets are exceptionally fine.
Dawson is quite possessed by Rossetti, but has re
sources of fancy, rhythm, decoration. If he contrives
to outgrow his pupilage, something of worth may be
expected from him. There is much simplicity and
grace in the Poems of Ernest Myers, largely suggested
by study and travel, and they belong to the com
posite art school. The contents of Wyville Home's
volumes are too diffuse, and there is nothing in his
Lay Canticles superior to a few sonnets in the earlier
Songs of a Wayfarer. His failures, however, are those
of one who aims high and in time may reach his
mark.
Many of the young writers devote themselves to
cabinet-picture making, whether their dainty verse is
properly idyllic or dramatic. The scenic tendency

465

466

LEFROY. POLLOCK. RAFFALOVICH.


increases, just as it has grown, with an Irving to
foster it, upon the stage. New poets strive, through
affecting the mind's eye, to outdo the painter's ap
peal to the bodily vision. This invasion of a neigh
boring domain is a failure to utilize their own, and
an undervaluation of the noblest of arts. Very pretty
things of the kind, however, are often produced in
this way.
A graceful scholar-poet is Lefroy, whose Echoes in
troduce us to old friends in a new guise. His open
method is to compress into a single sonnet the tenor
of some well - known poem. Gautier's " L'Art," al
ready paraphrased by Dobson, thus appears in son
net-form, and many idyls of Theocritus are treated
similarly. But these are supplemented by pleasing
sonnets of English cloister and outdoor life. Pollock's
Songs and Rhymes, with a prelude by Lang, make up
a little book of neat and polished verse a-la-mode,
which doubtless scarcely represents the mature or se
rious purpose of its author. Raffalovich's Cyril and
Lionel contains well-turned verse of a motive which,
although it is not imitative, I find difficult to under
stand. By his name this writer would seem to be
more justified than others in eking out his book with
lyrics in other tongues than the English. Since the
date of " Chastelard " this practice has been more or
less affected by the new men. Swinburne put French
songs into a play where they rightly belong, as an
obligate to the action and discourse. Now every lutanist splits his tongue, like a parrot's, to sing strange
words, but there are capabilities still left in our
native English. If such linguistic feats must be es
sayed, why not compose in the universal Volapuk,
or more mellifluously in the late Mr. Pearl An
drews's " Alwato " ?

OSCAR WILDE. RENNELL RODD.


A phase of the aesthetic crusade in defense of
poetry as an utterance of the beautiful solely, a
movement having almost perfect development at its
start with Keats so long ago, has appeared in the
outgivings of some of Ruskin's disciples, and avow
edly in the verse of Oscar Wilde. His Poems, with
all their conceits, are the fruit of no mean talent.
The opening group, under the head " Eleutheria,"
are the strongest. A lyric to England, " Ave Imperatrix," is manly verse, a poetic and eloquent
invocation. "The Garden of Eros," "Burden of
Itys," " Charmides," are examples of the sensuous
pseudo - classicism. There is a good deal of Keats,
and something of Swinburne, in Wilde's pages, but
his best master is Milton, whom he has studied, as
did Keats, to good effect. His scholarship and clev
erness are evident, as well as a native poetic gift.
The latter indeed might prove his highest gift, if
tended a little more seriously, and possibly he could
be on better terms with himself in his heart of
hearts if he would forego his fancies in behalf of his
imagination as there is still time for him to do.
It is fair to accept the statement of his own ground,
in his preface to the decorative verse of his friend
Rennell Rodd, though one doubts whether Gautier
would not have dubbed the twain jeunes brodeurs,
rather than jeunes guerriers, du drapeau romantique.
The apostles of our Lord were filled, like them, with
a " passionate ambition to go forth into far and fair
lands with some message for the nations and some
mission for the world." But not until many centu
ries had passed were their texts illuminated to the
extent displayed by Mr. Rodd and his printer, with
their resources of India - paper, apple-green tissue,

467

468

STE VENSON. COLONIAL POE TS. SHA RP.

vellum, and all the rarities desired by those who die


of a rose in aromatic pain. Yet the verse of Rose
Leaf and Apple Leaf is not so effeminate as one
would suppose. The minstrel's greensickness is now
well over, judging from his Feda and other Poems ;
and in throwing it off he gives a token of the vigor
needful for a decisive mark.
Now, as a minor but genuine example of poetic
Robert
Louis
art,
not alone for art's sake, but for dear nature's
Balfour
Stevenson : sake, in the light of whose maternal smile all art
1850must thrive and blossom if at all, take A Child's
Garden of Verses by Stevenson. This is a real ad
dition to the lore for children, and to that for man,
to whom the child is father. The flowers of this lit
tle garden spring from the surplusage of a genius
that creates nothing void of charm and originality.
Thanks, then, for the fresh, pure touch, for the reve
lation of childhood with its vision of the lands of
Nod and Counterpane, and of those next-door Foreign
Lands spied from cherry-tree top, and beyond the
trellised wall.
VIII.
There is promise in Earth's Voices, by Sharp, who
celebrates Nature, not in a Wordsworthian vein
but somewhat after the manner of Heine and the
Germans. The trouble with a long series of studies,
like " Earth's Voices " or the rispetti entitled " Tran
scripts from Nature," is that much of it is mere wordpainting, and only a few numbers are apt to be spon
taneous. " Sospitra " is his strongest effort. Pos
Colonial sibly Sharp whose critical biography of Rossetti
and
is of value should not be named with the Aus
Provincial
tralian contingent of writers, though some of his
Verse.

William
Sharp:
18-

GORDON. SLADEN. ROBERTS, ETC.


sketches and ballads are by one familiar with the
South Sea Continent. But there is no questioning
the local flavor of Gordon's "Bush Ballads," or the
ringing, spirited effectiveness of his lyrics of the field,
the turf, and the campaign. Receiving from Mel
bourne the posthumous collection of his Poems, I
was at once taken by the dash and verve of this
ex-cadet and Australian refugee, a sheep-farmer,
sportsman, amateur steeple-chase rider, and author of
" How We Beat the Favorite," the best racing ballad
in the language. Gordon's tragic and untimely death
may, or may not, have involved a loss to poetry : he
was one of the headstrong adventurous spirits whose
talent is unquestionable, but whose restless nature
and lack of fixed purpose hinder its full development,
and from whom their mates are always expecting
more than is achieved. Gordon was all by turns and
nothing long. There are plentiful traces of Byron,
Browning, Swinburne, in his careless style ; but when
most himself he bears to Australia the relation of
Harte to California, as a poet. What originality marks
A Poetry of Exiles and Australian Sketches, by Sladen,
is mainly the effect upon one reared in England of
a novel atmosphere and sky. Otherwise, Cozlum non
animum mutant may be said of many colonial poets,
and certainly of this scholar of Trinity, Oxford. His
key-note is that love of motherland, not yet stifled
even among Americans, and which the home-keep
ing Briton does not fully comprehend. Of a few
rising British Canadian poets Roberts, the author of
In Divers Tones, seems to be foremost. His verse
is thoughtful and finished, and conveys a hopeful ex
pression of the native sentiment now perceptible in
a land so long only " the child of nations." Toru

469

470

SONG, SENTIMENT, AND FANCY.


Dutt's Ballads and Legends of Hindustan, edited by
Gosse, are the pressed leaves of a tropic flower that,
striving to adapt itself to an atmosphere not its own,
exhaled some fragrance ere it died. Her verse was
curiously western, while narrating legends of a faith
which this " pure Hindu, full of the typical qualities
of her race and blood," had learned not to believe.
It has touches of lyrical melody, and an aspiration
that might in time have strengthened into fulfilment.
The list of colonial aspirants in Australia, Tasmania,
India, and elsewhere, is growing, and after a season
more than one of these imperial outposts will give
voice to a language of its own. Among local and
provincial verse - makers, Anderson, " the surface
man," may be mentioned as one of the best. His
dialect-pieces, and poems "of the rail," are welcome,
but when he ventures toward the high precincts of
Keats and Shelley he leaves his proper ground.
The song-writers and makers of popular verse are
relatively fewer than of old. Many of Aide's Songs
without Music are excellent, the work of a con
noisseur. He preserves for us a little of that spring
time sentiment, without which the world were colder.
The later songs of Marzials, who is both composer
and balladist, are far more enjoyable than his early
rococo-verse which served as a text for a comment
in Chapter VIII. As I have said elsewhere, a poet
is to be envied who can hear, wherever he goes, his
own words and music. In Clement Scott's Lays
of a Londoner there are some effective, sympathetic
lyrics, "A Prisoner of War," the " Story of a
Stowaway," "The Midshipmite," and apt memorial
poems. His lighter verse also marks him as a suc
cessor to the London group of Hood, Jerrold, Thack

THE POETIC DRAMA. MERIVALE.


eray, etc. The Lazy Minstrel is Ashby-Sterry's latest
collection of old-style ditties, and warranted by the
favor bestowed upon " Boudoir Ballads." Most of
his work is more strictly society - verse than much
which goes under that name. A queer but popular
field is that laid out and occupied by Dodgson, who,
as " Lewis Carroll," has proffered a merry antidote to
the hyper-sesthetic and other fads of the day. His
Rhyme and Reason contains " Phantasmagoria " and
"The Hunting of the Snark " bright audacities in
which the fancy that created " Alice in Wonder
land " plays without tether, and affords delight to the
healthy and fun-loving mind. Courthope, also, has a
clever vein of his own. His Ludibrice Luna, a light
satire on " woman's rights," and The Paradise of
Birds, an Aristophanic extravaganza, are enlivened by
an easy command of measures, scholarly humor, and
abundant fancy.
The few who are bold enough to write poetry for
the dramatic stage lead a forlorn hope, and at least
deserve consideration. But first a word of tribute is
due to Dr. Marston, of whose works a general col
lection was made in 1876. Some of his dramas were
well suited to their purpose, and scenes of true poe
try and emotion are not wanting in " Strathmore " and
other plays. Merivale is the most elevated of the
dramatists not hitherto mentioned, and success as an
artistic playwright is of marked . advantage to a dra
matic poet. The White Pilgrim is a good poetic dra
ma, with weirdly imaginative scenes. Florien, a later
tragedy, is scarcely a literary advance ; but it dis
plays the author's skill in historic reproduction, is con
sistently English, and of decided interest. Merivale's
songs the " Venetian Boat-Song," for example

471

472

GILBERT. RECENT TRANSLA TORS.


are especially good, as those of a dramatist should
be. " Ross Neil " has been a fertile composer of
metrical dramas and plays. Of the many contained
in five books published since 1872, I have seen only
those grouped with Andrea the Painter. They are
creditable for incident, situation, language, and con
struction, but the writer seldom gains a height com
mensurate with her poetic aim. Wills's Melchior, a
long romantic art-poem, which I mention as the work
of an active playwright, will not increase the reputa
tion of the author of " The Man o' Airlie " and " Claudian." Plainly the shield has been touched with most
lightness and precision by the bearer of Mercury's
caduceus, that wit and singular genius, Gilbert,
whose Original Plays, delightful with humor and pa
thos, have captured the airiest spirit of our time and
added to "the gayety of nations." "Pygmalion and
Galatea," " The Wicked World," and that little
poem so charming in scene and dialogue, so pure and
original as a piece of fancy, " Broken Hearts," may
not be cast in the noblest moulds of imaginative art ;
but for ideality, truth to nature, and thorough adap
tation of means to ends, they have not recently been
surpassed in English dramatic literature.
The field of translation is less persistently tilled than
at the date of my former review. The British scholar
no longer deems it his bounden duty to produce a
fresh metrical version of Horace. There have been
a few more translations of Homer, the most note
worthy being Cayley's Iliad, and the prose texts by
Lang and his associates. Kegan Paul's literal and
lineal " Faust " appeared in 1872, and five years later
Miss Swanwick published her translation of the same
drama. Attention has been paid to the Italian and

ECOLE INTERME'DIAIRE.
Spanish masterpieces, and to minor reproductions
from the Turkish, Russian, and other modern anthol
ogies.
IX.
Finally we observe what has been, all in all, the
most specific phase of British minstrelsy since 1875.
This is seen in the profusion of lyrical elegantiae,
the varied grave and gay ditties, idyls, metrical cameos
and intaglios, polished epistles and satires, classed
as Society Verse, the Court Verse of older times.
Perceiving signs of its revival, I could not foresee
that it would flourish as it has, and really constitute
the main thing upon which a lyrical interval would
plume itself. Its popularity is curious and significant.
The pioneer in verse of a movement already evident
in society and household art was Austin Dobson.
This favorite poet, by turns the Horace, Suckling,
Prior, of his day, allying a debonair spirit with the
learning and precision of Queen Anne's witty fabu
lists, has well advanced a career which began with
"Vignettes in Rhyme." Enjoying the quality of that
book, I felt that its poet, to hold his listeners, must
change his song from time to time. Of this he has
proved himself fully capable. His second volume,
Proverbs in Porcelain, gave us a series of little " prov
erbs " in dialogue, exquisite bits of " Louis Quinze,"
and perfectly unique in English verse. Nothing can
excel the beauty and pathos of " Good-Night, Babette," with the Angelus song low-blended in its dy
ing fall. The lines "To a Greek Girl," in the same
collection, and the paraphrase of Gautier, " Ars Victrix," superadd a grace even beyond that of Dobson's early lyrics. Who has not read the "Idyl of

473

474

AUSTIN DOBSON.
the Carp," and the racy ballad of " Beau Brocade " ?
Here, too, are his little marvels in the shape of the
rondel, rondeau, villanelle, triolet, those French
forms which he has handled with an ease almost in
imitable, yet so wantonly provoking imitation.
Perhaps Dobson more than others has shaped the
temper of our youngest poets. A first selection from
his works appeared in the United States in 1880, its
welcome justifying a second in 1885. Meanwhile the
choice editions de luxe, Old World Idyls and At the
Sign of the Lyre, represent the greater portion of his
verse. Any author might point to such a record
with pride ; there is scarcely a stanza in these vol
umes wanting in extreme refinement, and this with
out marring its freshness and originality. In his
place one should never yield as there are stray
omens that he sometimes is yielding to any popu
lar or journalistic temptation that would add a line
to these fortunate pieces, except under the impulse
of an artistic and spirited mood.
The influence of Dobson and his associates has
been a characteristic a, symptomatic expression
of the interval between the close of the true Victo
rian period and the beginning of some new and, let
us hope, inspiring poetic era. It has created, in
fact, a sort of hole intermMiaire, of which the gay
and buoyant minstrelsy is doubtless preferable to
those affected heroics that bore every one save the
egotist who gives vent to them. For real poetry,
though but a careless song, light as thistle-down and
floating far from view, will find some lodgment for
its seed even on distant shores and after long time.
The roundelays of Villon, of Du Bellay and his
Pldiade, waited centuries for a fit English welcome

ANDREW LANG.
and interpretation. Lang's Ballads and Lyrics of old
France, in 1872, captured the spirit of early French
romantic song. Nine years afterward, his Ballades
in Blue China chimed in with the temper of our new
fangled minstrel times. Such craftsmanship as the
villanelle on Theocritus, the ballade to the same
poet, and the ballades "Of Sleep" and "Of the
Book- Hunter," came from a sympathetic hand. In
the later " Ballades and Verses Vain " are new trans
lations, etc., and a few striking addenda, memorably
the resonant sonnet on the Odyssey. A " Ballade
of his Choice of a Sepulchre " is Lang's highest
mark as a lyrist, and perhaps the freest vein of his
Rhymes d la Mode is in the long poems that do not
fall under that designation, such as "The Fortunate
Islands." He has almost preempted the " Ballade,"
but his later specimens of it are scarcely up to his
own standard. " Cameos " and " Sonnets from the
Antique " are at the head of their class, and natu
rally, for no other Oxonian is at once so variously
equipped a scholar and so much of a poet. The fi
delity, diction, and style of his prose translations of
Homer and Theocritus are equally distinguished.
Thus far his most serious contribution to poetry is
Helen of Troy, a poem taking, as one would ex
pect, the minority view of its legend, and depicting
the fair cause of Troy's downfall as a victim to the
plots of the gods. It is written felicitously in eightline stanzas of a novel type, and, while not strong
in special phrases and epithets, has much tranquil
beauty. On his working-day side, readers never wait
long for something bright from this versatile, inven
tive feuilletonist, a master of persiflage, whose
learned humor and audacity, when he is most insu
lar, are perhaps the most entertaining.

475

476

THE PRESENT AND THE FUTURE.

X.
ConsidcraIf imitation be flattery, Dobson and Lang have
tums sug- breathed sufficient of its incense. Their " forms "
gested by
thisreview, have haunted a multitude of young singers, and
proved as taking and infectious as the airs of Sulli
van's operettas. They have crossed the seas and
multiplied in America more rapidly than the English
sparrows which preceded them, so that, as in the
case of their feathered compatriots, the question is
whether a check can be put to the breed. As I
have said, this elegant rhyming, however light and
delicate, is in fact a special feature of the latest
Victorian literature, and, with its pretty notes ting
ling on the ear, is a text for some last words in dis
cussion of what has gone before.
First, let me say that it is but shallow reasoning
to worry over the outbreak of any fancy or fashion
in art. Let a good thing a much better thing
than any form in verse be overdone, and people
will signify their weariness of it so decisively that
the quickness of its exit will be as surprising as its
temporary vogue.
Question of
What conclusions, then, are derivable from our
tiieouthok. summary 0f the British poetic movement of the last
dozen years ? We have paid tribute to the noble
chants of a few masters who still teach us that
Poetry is the child of the soul and the imagination.
But one looks to the general drift of the younger
poets, who initiate currents to the future, for an an
swer to the question, What next ? The direct in
fluences of Keats, Wordsworth, and Shelley are no
longer servilely displayed ; few echo even Tennyson ;
Browning, Rossetti, and Swinburne are more widely

EXISTING CHARACTERISTICS.
favored ; but ancestral and paternal strains are as
much confused and blended in the verse of the new
est aspirants as in genealogy. Their work is more
composite than ever, judging from the poets selected
as fairly representative. Only two of its divisions
are sufficiently pronounced for even a fanciful classi
fication. One is the Stained-Glass poetry, if I may so
term it, that dates from " The Blessed Damozel " and
cognate models by Rossetti and his group ; the other,
that Debonair Verse, whose composers apply them
selves by turns to imitation of the French minstrelsy
and forms, and to the aesthetic embroidery of Ken
sington-stitch rhyme, for in each of these pleasant
devices the same practitioners excel. Now the class
first named, and the first division of the second, are
of alien origin : they are exotics their renaissance
is of the chivalry, romance, mysticism, and balladry
of foreign literatures. Only that witty, gallant verse
which takes its cue from the courtly British models
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is an ex
ception, and that, whatever its cleverness and pop
ularity, can hardly be termed inventive.
The next thing to be noted is the finical nicety to
which, as we see, the technique of poetry has ad
vanced. Never were there so many capable of pol
ishing measures quite unexceptionable as to form
and structure, never fewer whose efforts have lifted
them above what is, to be sure, an unprecedented
level but still a level. The cult of beauty and art,
delightfully revived so long ago by Hunt and Keats,
has brought us at last to this. Concerning inspira
tion and the creative impulse, we have seen first :
that recent verse-makers who are most ambitious and
prolific have not given much proof of exceptional

477

478

TRUE REALISM.
genius. Their productions have the form and dimen
sion of masterpieces, and little more. Secondly :
those who appear to be real poets, shrinking from
the eiTort to do great things in an uncongenial time,
reveal their quality by lovely minor work some
times rising to an heroic and passionate but briefly
uttered strain. And it is better to do small things
well than to essay bolder ventures without heart or
seriousness. Still, I think they must now and then
doubt the importance of thus increasing, without
specific increase of beauty and novelty, the mass of
England's rich anthology. Looking back, years from
now, it will be seen that one noble song on a com
pulsive theme has survived whole volumes of elabo
rate,
What
soulless
is it, artisanship
then, that by
chills
even
thethe
" heart
natural
andpoets.
seri
ousness " of those most artistic and ideal ? The rise
of conditions adverse to the imaginative exercise of
their powers has been acknowledged from the first
in these essays. It is clear that instinct has become
measurably dulled, as concerns the relative value of
efforts ; so that poets do not magnify their calling
as of old. There is less bounce, and, unfortunately,
still less aspiration. Nor has the modern spirit, now
freed from sentimental illusions, as yet brought its
wits to a thorough understanding of what true Real
ism is viz., that which is just as faithful to the
ideal and to the soul of things as to obvious and
external matters of artistic treatment. Here again
the law of reaction will in the end prevail. Its op
eration is already visible in the demand for more in
ventive and wholesomely romantic works of fiction ;
and this is but the forerunner of a corresponding
impulse by which the poet the maker the crea

SCHOLAR'S WORK.
tive idealist whose office it is to perceive and il
lumine all realities, both material and spiritual, will
have his place again.
For a time, however, the revival of creative prosefiction may occupy more than one poetic mind.
Novel-writing is more vigorously pursued than ever,
by fresh hands. Journalism opens new and broader
courts tempting for their influence, sense of power,
and the subsistence yielded. Criticism, book-making,
book-editing, are flourishing industries. Scholar's
work is steadily pursued, and carried even to analy
sis of living authors. Our poetry itself is too schol
arly. A recent happy statement concerning Byron,
that he "did not know enough," does not apply to
the typical latter-day poet. He has too much learn
ing withal, of a technical, linguistic, treasure-hunting
sort.
The over - intellectuality and scholarship of
many lyrists absorb them in curious studies, and
deaden their impulse toward original and glowing ef
forts. They revive and translate, and borrow far too
much the hoardings of all time. Even in their judg
ments they set an undue relative value upon the
learning or philosophy of a master under discussion.
Moreover, their literary skill and acquirements make
the brightest of them serviceable aids to the pub
lishers. No sooner are their names in public favor
than the great houses smooth their way along the
lucrative paths of book-making. Great and small
houses have multiplied, and printing is easy and uni
versal. To all this we indeed owe attractive series
of critico-biographical Volumes, anthologies catholic
and select, encyclopaedias, translations, and texts
without end. Good and welcome as much of this
work is, my present question must be : Does it not

479

4&o

LACK OF A XA TICSA L STYLE.

chasten azd absorb the poet's faculties ? Has he


not. at last, too good a literary market ? The com
mon-sense rep'.y is. that, after alL he must live,
and the belief is antiquated that poets, like caged
birds, sing better for starving. Yet if you chance of
late upon a unique and terribly earnest bard, a
man like Thomson. you find that he was out of
the literary ~ swim '' and usually out of pocket ;
Itylc.
while his well-to-do brother more often is the man
: of letters, corresponding to Southey and Wilson
rather than to their fiery contemporaries. If the po
etic drama, for example, were now more frequently
calling for elevated work, imagination and subsistence
would both be subserved. The stage does make
welcome beautiful and witty verse of a light order,
but what it regularly supports is the facile play
wright ; and its operettas and scenic plays are logi
cally adapted to the zest for amusement and the
ruling decorative frenzy.
The desire of the critic and the public alike, and
Lack ofa
national first of all, is for something new and additional.
But that which is new is of higher worth when it
contributes to the furtherance of a true national
style. What is Spanish, French, German, we at once
recognize as such, however different from previous
works of like origin ; but how seldom the later Vic
torian minstrelsy is essentially English ! A recent
article by W. P. P. Longfellow criticises existing
tendencies of architecture in Great Britain. He re
cords the progress of a style which advanced to its
culmination with the design for the new Law Courts,
and until the " Victorian Gothic was everywhere."
He" Success
writes that
was
due, not so much to the style chosen as

WHAT THIS IMPLIES.


to the fact, that, having found a style which suited them,
the English followed it unitedly and persistently. Here
seemed to be a national movement, strong, deep, and
promising to endure. . . . Then, suddenly, at the signal
of two or three restless and clever young men, whose
eyes had caught something else, the English architects
with one accord threw the whole thing away; as a boy,
after working the morning through at some plaything,
with a sudden weariness drops his unfinished toy to run
after the first butterfly. . . . They have seemed to show
us that their progress was at the impulse of whim rather
than conviction, ruled rather by fashion than tradition.
It is the mobile Frenchman who in this century has set
us an example of steadiness. If his work, like all the
rest in our day, lacks some of the higher qualities of older
and greater styles, it has, more than any other modern
work, the coherency and firmness that are at the bottom
of all style."
The point thus made has a bearing upon more
arts than one. A style of architecture, it is true, is
the outcome of centuries. Literary style has a read
ier formation and is quickly affected by individual
leadership. Yet a national manner has distinguished
the most subtile and inclusive of literary forms in
every important era. This is not sustained by curious
devices and imitations, however choice and attractive,
but by harmonizing personal quality with the national
note of expression. I think there is a lack of recog
nizable and pervasive style in our English poetry of
the period ; that, with the exception of the portion
which confessedly revives the manners of Queen
Anne's time and the Georgian, it is chiefly English
in its intense desire to escape from Anglicism.
What does this imply, style being a visible em
blem of spiritual traits, other than a want, so far

482

"THE SAME ARTS THAT DID GAIN


as poetry can indicate it, of individual and national
purpose ? Breadth, passion, and imagination seem to
be the elements least conspicuous in much of the re
cent song. The new men withdraw themselves from
the movement of their time and country, forgetting
it all in dreamland in no-man's-land. They com
pose sonnets and ballads as inexpressive of the reso
lution of an imperial and stalwart people as are the
figures upon certain modern canvases the dis
traught, unearthly youths and maidens that wander
along shadowy meads by nameless streams, with their
eyes fixed on some hand we "cannot see, which
beckons " them away.
It may be that before we can hope for a return
of poetic vigor some heroic crisis must be endured,
some experience undergone, of more import than the
mock-campaigns in weak and barbarous provinces,
whereby Great Britain preserves her military and col
onizing traditions, and avoids the stagnation of utter
repose. The grand old realm bids fair to have her
awakening. There are clouds enough to bode sterner
issues and nearer conflicts than she has faced since
Cromwell's time. Ireland is filling men's ears with
her threats and appeals. In a season of jubilee so
cialists crowd St. Paul's, their banners inscribed with
" Justice and Liberty, or Death " ; the Marseillaise
is chorused in London thoroughfares, and London
poets sing triolets. The wise are not swift to pro
nounce this troubadour insouciance a mark of ef
feminacy and declining genius. A great dramatist
makes Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, and their com
rades within the fated barricade, heroes all, while
casting bullets and waiting for the struggle at dawn,
sing not battle -odes but love- songs. England's

A POWER MUST IT MAINTAIN."


heroism and imagination are not to be judged by
her verse at this moment. Whether the Mother of
Nations is to be like Niobe, or long with loyal chil
dren to rise up and call her blessed, her poets in
fit succession will enrich the noblest imaginative lit
erature of any race or tongue, though, peradventure,
"after some time be past."

483

INDEX.

IND EX.

Ablett, Joseph, 68.


Adams, Sarah Flower, 257, 278.
Adonais, Shelley's, 99, 168, 396, 398.
/Eschylus, 204, 269.
Esthetic Movement, Recent, 416,
463 ; Wilde, Rodd, etc., 467 ; Ken
sington-Stitch Verse, 477.
Affectation, 262 et seq., 300.
Affluence, of Landor's imagination,
46 ; of the recent schools, 345.
Agamemnon ofjEschylus, Browning's,
426.
Aide, Hamilton, 470.
Aird, Thomas, 255.
Alcestis, of Euripides, 336.
Alexander the Great, De Vere's, 242.
Alexandrian Period, described and
compared to the Victorian, 202209, 430 ; Kingsley on, 208 ; and
see pp. 239, 276, 286.
Alfieri, compared to Landor, 57.
Alford, Henry, 242, 278.
Allegory, Tennyson's love of, 176 ;
borrowed from the Italian, 176; of
Home's Orion, 249.
Allingham, William, 92, 258, 444.
Alliteration, Tennyson's, 179, 226;
Swinburne's, 381.
Amateurship, generally to be dis
trusted, 58, 59; Landor's, 59;
Swinburne's, 410.
Ambition, L. Morris's, 452.
America, not understood by Landor,
64; history and song, 290, 291 ; re

flex influence on England, 291, 292 ;


and see 389.
American poets, their freshness and
individuality, 290; American and
British minor poets contrasted, 290,
291 ; Swinburne's strictures upon,
402-404.
Amoebean contests, in Theocritus and
in Tennyson, 218, 219.
Anacreon, 205, 226.
Analysis, and synthesis, the servitors
of Art, 197.
Anapestic Verse, Browning's and
Swinburne's, 325.
Anderson, Alex., 470.
" Andrea del Sarto," Browning's, 322.
Andrea of Hungary, Landor's, 42.
Andrews, S. P., his " Alwato " lan
guage, 466.
Andromeda, Kingsley's, 43, 251.
Angelo, Michael, 448.
Anglicism, love of motherland, 469 ;
recent lack of, 481
Animals, Landor's love for, 61.
" Annuals," The, 237.
Anthologia Graca, 204.
Anthropomorphism, 327.
Antique, the ; Atalanta the best at
tempt to reproduce it, 386, 387 ; re
moved from popular sympathy, 386 ;
and see Hellenics.
Application, 412.
Appreciation, Ruskin on, 298.
Arabian Nights, 377.

4S8

I.XDEX.

Architecture, and national style, +Sl.


Ariosto, II.
Aristocracy in Art, law of, 53.
A '-ulcfiajsss' Afciegr, Brownings,
338.4=6:
Arnold, Edwin, 270; The Light if
Atu, etc, 449, 450Arnold, Matthew, a poet of the closet, '
73 ; review of his genius and writ
ings, 90-100: his first volume, 90;
contrasted with Hood, 90. 91 ; a
poet of the intellect, 91 ; lyrical ex
cellence and defects, 9? ; his poetic
theory. 92 : his limitations, 93 ; ele
vated blank-verse, 93 : Balder Dead,
93 ; Sohrab and Rustum, 94 ; other
poems and studies, 95 ; Preface ex
planatory of his own position, 95;
his mental structure and attitude,
96; subjective pieces, 96; exhibits
reaction from over - culture, 97 ;
Clough and Arnold, 9S; "Thyrsis," 9S ; his masterly prose-writ
ings, 99 ; final estimate of his stand
ing as a poet, 100; despondent atti
tude of Arnold and Palgrave, 247 ;
quoted, 247 ; his citation of Goethe,
341 ; revision of foregoing criticism,
442 ; a leader of modem thought,
ib. ; his most ideal trait, it. ; and
see 5, 40, 167, 168, 251, 289, 348,
386, 396, 401, 435, 460, 463.
Art, spirit of antique, 10; Hebraic
feeling, 10 ; medixval spirit, lo, II ;
modem spirit, 11, 12; tendency to
reflect its own time, 27 ; transient
effect of novelty, 29; law of sym
pathy, 38 ; art as a means of sub
sistence, 58 ; defective art of Mrs.
Browning, 126, 144, 146; complex
modem art, shown by Tennyson,
183, 186; refinement of the minor
poets, 240 ; Ruskin on art as a means

of expression, 288; Balzac on true


mission of, 266; Blake on nature
and imagination, 266 ; a wise meth
od necessary to art, 300; tyranny
of forms, 300 ; Art the bride of the
imagination, 304; universality of
her domain, 403.
Artisanship, not a substitute for Im
agination, 47S.
Art-School, evolution of, 4, 5 ; Ten
nyson its head, 159; and see 270,
*7>. 347.
Ashby-Sterry, Joseph, 471.
Ashe, Thomas, 271.
Aspiration, and attainment, 367 ; mo
dem restriction of, 458, 478.
Atalanta in Calydon, Swinburne's, re
viewed, 386-3S9 ; as a reproduction
of the antique, 387 ; choric verse,
3S8 ; Greek dedication of, 398 ; and
see 43, 271, 283, 392, 404, 405.
Athenaitm, London, Miss Barrett's
contributions to, 123.
Attic Period, 205.
Aurora Leigh, Mrs. Browning's, re
flects her own experience, 117, 118 ;
review of, 140-143; Lander's esti
mate of, 142; and see 146.
Austin, Alfred, 450, 451.
" Ave atque Vale," Swinburne's, 99 ;
examined, 396-398 ; a lofty ode,
and how it compares with other
elegies, 396 ; metrical beauty, 397.
Awkwardness, Browning's, 303.
Aytoun, William Edmondstoune, 250,
251, 262 ; Firmilian, and Bon Gualtier, 272 ; translations, 276.
Bacon, 118.
Baconian Method, 9.
Bailey, Philip James, 263.
Baillie, Joanna, 120, 235.

INDEX.
Balaustion's Adventure, Browning's,
336, 338, 426.
Balder, Dobell's, 267.
Balder Dead, Arnold's, 55, 93.
Balin and Balan, Tennyson's, 420.
Ballad Romances, Home's, 249.
Ballads
420. and Other Poems, Tennyson's,
Ballads, Hood's, 76; Kingsley's, 251 ;
Buchanan's, 356; Rossetti's, 359,
364 ; strength of Tennyson's later,
420; Mrs. Pfeiffer's, 454; Gosse's
" Cruise of the Rover," 460.
Ballantine, James, 279.
Balzac, on the true mission of Art,
266.
Banim, John, 260.
Barbaric Taste, Browning's, 339.
Barham, Richard Harris, 238.
Baring-Gould, Sabine, 278.
Barlow, George, 453.
Barnard, Lady Ann, 120.
Barnes, William, 279, 440.
Barons' Wars, Drayton's, 180.
Barrett, Miss. See Elizabeth Barrett
Browning.
Barrett, Mr., father of Mrs. Browning,
116; opposes his daughter's mar
riage, 132, 133.
" Barry Cornwall." See B. W. Proc
ter.
Barton, Bernard, 235.
Baudelaire, Charles, Swinburne's me
morial to, 168, 396-398; Les Fleurs
du Mai, 396, 412.
Bayley, Thomas Haynes, 258.
Beauty, one of three kinds essential
in art, 336.
Beautiful, the, Morris an artist of,
366 et seq. ; Keats devoted to, 367.
Becket, Tennyson's, 419.
Beddoes, Thomas Lovell, quoted, 20 ;
and see 2, 47, 104, 191, 237, 249.

489

Bells and Pomegranates, Browning's,


310.
Bennett, William Cox, 259.
BentUy's Magazine, 255.
Beranger, 3, 83, 339.
Bevington, Louisa S., 457.
Bickersteth, Edward Henry, 278, 452.
Biography, in estimating an author's
works, 54.
Bum, Epitaph of, 201, 396.
Bion, and Moschus, 99, 168, 201, 215,
216, 221, 223,225; and see Theocri
tus and Tennyson.
" Bishop Blougram's Apology," 327,
32S, 337.
Blackie,
Blackwood's
Blake,
Blackmore,
aphorisms
William,
JohnR.
Magazine,
of,
Stuart,
D.,266
his
454.;275.
255.
idealism,
and see 353,
19 ;

Blanchard,
Blank-Verse,
362, 401. Laman,
a crucial
441.test, 45 ; Landor's, 45, 46; Tennyson's, 160-162;
Elizabethan,
idyllic, 212 ; 160
Byron's
; Miltonic,
and Swin
160 ;
Blot
"Blind,
Blessington,
Blessed
burne's,
inMathilde,
the
Damozel,
437.Countess
'Scutcheon,
457.The,"
of, Browning's,
38.
363.

3'4Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen, 460.


Boccaccio, II, 372.
Boileau, 393.
Bonar, Horatius, 278.
Book of Orm, Buchanan's, 352-354;
transcendental, and lacking sim
plicity, but fine here and there, 353,
354. "The Dream of the World
without Death," and " The Vision
of the Man Accurst," 354.

49

INDEX.

Book of the Poets, Mrs. Browning's,


240.
Book-making, as an industry, 479.
Books,
youngand
imagination,
reading, effect
117. upon the
Bothie
244. of Tober-na-Vuolich, Clough's,
Botkwell, Aytoun's, 250.
Bothwell, Swinburne's, 290 ; reviewed,
406-410; an epic in dramatic form,
406, 407 ; notable passages, 407 ; ab
sence of mannerism, 408 ; extracts
from, 408, 409; general character
istics, 410 ; and see 389, 394, 436.
Bothwick, Jane, 278.
Bowles, William Lisle, 235.
Bowring, Sir John, 274.
Boyd, Hugh Stuart, his friendship
with Mrs. Browning, 1 19.
" Boythorn," portrait of Landor, by
Dickens, 57.
Breeding, 272.
" Bridge of Sighs," Hood's, 86 ; its
purity and pathos, 87, 88.
Bridges, Robert, Nero, and lyrical
pieces, 462, 463.
Broderip, Mrs., 88.
Bronte, Charlotte, 120.
Bronte" Sisters, 253.
Brown, Armitage, 37.
Browne, Sir Thomas, 52.
Browne, William, 232.
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 5, 30, 38 ;
review of her life and writings, 1 14149 ; her spiritual temperament,
114 ; the greatest female poet, 115 ;
unmarried life, 1 1 6-1 32 ; birth, 116;
Essay on Mind, 116; early training,
1 17-120 ; friendship with Hugh S.
Boyd, 119; classical studies, 119,
121 ; portrait by Miss Mitford, 110;
general culture, 120; compared with
other female writers, 120; herschol-

arship not pedantic, 121 ; Prome


theus Bound, and Miscellaneous Po
ems, 121 ; Paraphrases on Theocri
tus, etc., 122; her classicism, 122;
distinct from Landor's, 122 ; pro
longed illness and seclusion, 123;
friendship with Mary Russell Mit
ford, 123; The Seraphim and other
Poems, 1 23, 1 24 ; The Romaunt ofthe
Page, 123 ; Essays on the GreekChristian and English Poets, 123,
124; first collective edition of her
poems, 124; The Drama of Exile,
124; reviewed, 127-129; character
istics as an English poet, 124-127 ;
her early style, 124; disadvantages
of over-culture, 124 ; compared to
Shelley, 124; her ballads and minor
lyrics, 124, 125; "Rhyme of the
Duchess May," 125 ; her diction,
1 26 ; lack of taste, 1 26 ; nobility of
feeling, 126; defective art, 126;
clouded vision, 127 ; transcenden
talism, 127 ; knowledge of Hebrew,
127; minor lyrics, 129; humanita
rian poems, 129; " Lady Geraldine's
Courtship," 130 ; end of her forma
tive career, 131 ; improving health,
131 ; her meeting with Robert
Browning, 131 ; courtship and mar
riage, 132 ; Mr. Barrett's opposition
to the nuptials, 132, 133 ; complete
womanhood, 1 33 ; her years of mar
ried life, 133-149 ; the wedded poets,
1 36 ; summit of Mrs. Browning's
greatness, 1 36 ; primary and benefi
cent influence of wedlock, 136; Son
nets from the Portuguese, 137, 138,
439; compared with "In Memoriam," 1 38 ; her devotion to Italy,
138 ; Casa Guidi Windows, 136, 139;
lines to her son, 1 39 ; revised edi
tion of her poems (1856), 140; de

INDEX.
lightful residence in Italy, 140 ; Au
rora Leigh, 136 ; reviewed, 140-142 ;
Mrs. Browning's period of decline
in health and creative power, 143,
322 ; secondary influence of her
married life, 143 ; Poems before Con
gress, 143 ; contributions to the In
dependent, 143 ; Last Poems, 144 ;
final estimate of her genius, 144149 ; her qualities as an artist, 144 ;
contrasted with Tennyson, 144, 145 ;
her over - possession, 145, incerti
tude, 145, spontaneity, 145, use of
the refrain, 145, dangerous facility,
146, lack of humor, 146, satirical
power, 146, slight idyllic tendency,
146 ; her sympathetic and religious
nature, 147 ; her personal sweet
ness, 147 ; subjective quality of her
writings, 147 ; represents her sex in
the Victorian era, 148 ; her faith in
inspiration, 148 ; her exaltation and
rapture, 148, belief in the doctrines
of Swedenborg, 148 ; her death,
149 ; poetry addressed to her by
her husband, 333 ; and see 198, 222,
315, 320, 463.
Browning, Robert, characteristics, 30 ;
first acquaintance with Miss Bar
rett, 131 ; courtship and marriage,
132 ; good and bad effects upon his
wife's style, 136, 143, 144; imitated
by Thornbury, 252 ; influence on
minor poets, 265 ; Neo-Romantic
influence, 281 ; review of his career
and writings, 293-341 ; an original,
unequal poet, 293, 338 ; birth, 293 ;
three aspects of his genius, 293 ;
analysis of his dramatic gift, 294296 ; represents the new dramatic
element, 294 ; not dramatic in the
early sense of the term, 294, 295 ;
his own personality visible in all his

491

characters, 296 ; mannerism, 296 ;


stage-plays not his best work, 296 ;
his chief success in portrayal of sin
gle characters and moods, 296 ; his
special mission, 297 ; the poet of
psychology, 297 ; founder of a subdramatic school, 297 ; his style and
method, 297-301 ; eccentricity, 297 ;
impression left by his work, 300;
the same, as stated by a clear think
er, 300 ; his defective and capricious
expression, 301 ; style of his early
and latest works, 301 ; his apparent
theory, 301 ; vigorous early lyrics,
302 ; the " Cavalier Tunes," stirruppieces, "Herve Riel," "The Pied
Piper," etc., 302 ; his general style,
303, 429 ; mutual influence of him
self and his wife, 303 ; the two poets
compared, 303 ; his disregard of the
fitness of things, 304 ; excessive de
tail, 304 ; irreverent to art, 304 ;
crude realism, 304 ; at the London
University, 303 ; goes to Italy, 305 ;
Paracelsus, 305 - 308 ; recognition
gained by it, 305 ; its garrulity, 306 ;
fine thought and diction, 306-308 ;
Strafford, 308, 309 ; intended as a
stage-play, 308 ; enacted by Macready, 309; Sordello, 309,310; Bells
and Pomegranates, 310-319 ; " Luria," 310-312 ; the poet's favorite
type of hero, 310; Landor's verses
to Browning, 311 ; "The Return of
the Druses," 312, 313; good dra
matic effects, 312 ; the author's clas
sicism, 313; his debt to Italy, 313;
" King Victor and King Charles,"
313 ; three dramatic masterpieces,
313; "Colombe's Birthday," 313,
314; "A Blot in the 'Scutcheon,"
314; a song resembling Mrs. Brown
ing's style, 315; " Pippa Passes,"

492

I.XDEX.

reviewed, quoted, with notice of its 333, 335 ; faulty quality of many
faults and beauties, 315-319; "A lyrics, 334 ; The Xing and the Book,
Soul's Tragedy," 319 ; the poet fore
334 - 336 ; occasional likeness to
goes strictly dramatic poetry, 319;
Tennyson, 335 ; Baldustioris Adven
dramatic nature of his lyrics, 320 ;
ture, 336 ; Fijine at the Fair, 336 ;
originality in rejecting the idyllic
tendency to prosaic work, 337 ; Red
method, 320 ; founder of the new
Cotton Night -Cap Country, 337;
life-school, 320 ; more realistic than
evils of an unwise method, 337 ;
imaginative, 321 ; his genius, 321 ; Aristophanes' Apology, 338 ; final
Dramatic RomancesandLyrics, 321 ; estimate of his genius, 338-341 ; un
" My Last Duchess," 321 ; Men and conventional spirit of his verse,
Women, and Dramatis Persona, 338; a true fellow-craftsman, 339;
321-329 ; inferiority of the last- rich, yet barbaric, taste, 339 ; does
named volume, 322 ; excellence of not perfect his ideal, 339 ; results of
his lawlessness, 340 ; feeling engen
the former, 322 ; thrilling dramatic
dered by his recent work, 340 ; mi
studies, 322 ; mediaeval themes, 322 ;
" Andrea del Sarto," " Fra Lippo nute dramatic insight, 340 ; is his
Lippi," etc, 322, 323; facility of the " poetry of the future " ? 341 ;
diction, 324 ; " Christmas Eve " and opinions as to his ultimate rank as
a poet, 341 ; his style and Swin
" Easter Day," 324 ; excellent me
diaeval church studies, 324, 352 ; burne's compared, 382; his recent
their truth and subtilty, 324 ; " The leadership, 416; longevity, 417 ; optunism, 422, 433 ; The Inn Album,
Heretic's Tragedy," etc., 325 ; stud
ies upon themes taken from the 425 ; Pacchiarotto, 425 ; Agamem
non, 426 ; La Saisiaz, etc., 426 ;
first century, 325, 326 ; " Cleon,"
Dramatic Idyls, 426 ; Jocoseria,
" A Death in the Desert," etc., 326 ;
defect of these pieces, 327 ; his sub
427 ; Ferishtah's Fancies, 427 ; Par428 ; increase
etc, 427 of; his
popularity,
use of Rhyme,
429tilty of intellect, 327 ; " Caliban," leyings,
" Bishop Blougram," etc., 327, 328 ;
occasional lyrics, 328, imitated by 431 ; the Browning Societies, 430,
younger poets, 328, their beauty, 431 ; his introspective gift, 431-433 ;
328, landscape, 328, and suggestive- compared with Tennyson, and their
differing relations to the Period,
ness, 329 ; moral of this poet's emo
433 ; and see 38, 47, 57, 62, 167, 168,
tional and erotic verse, 329, 330 ;
187, 249, 256. 257. 29. 291, 352- 384.
rationalistic freedom, 329 ; admired
386, 402, 413, 420, 421, 440, 441, 450,
by those who reject Swinburne, 330 ;
451, 465, 469, 476.
subjective undertone of his " Dra
matic Lyrics," 330 ; " In a Balcony," Brownings, the two, 2 ; friendship with
331 ; teaches respect for passional Landor, 38 ; effect on each other's
style, 303and
; and
Rossetti,
see 333,
leaders
344. of the
instincts, 332 ; " The Statue and the Browning
Bust," 332 ; perfect union with his
wife, 333 ; poetry addressed to her, new romantic school, 6.

INDEX.
Bryant, William Cullen, translator of
Homer, 276 ; pastorals, 349 ; and
see American Poets.
Buchanan, Robert, 264 ; his antago
nistic position, 345 ; birth, 346 ; po
etic temperament, 346 ; represents
the Scottish element, 346 ; religious
aspiration, 346; transcendentalism,
347 ; library edition of his works,
347 ; how far a pupil of Words
worth, and the Lake School, 347 ;
inequality, 347 ; purpose and orig
inality, 348 ; lack of restraint, 348 ;
Undertones, 348 ; classicism, 348 ;
Idyls and Legends of Inverburn,
348-350 ; his fidelity to Nature, 349 ;
pastoral verse, 349, 350 ; NorthCoast poems, 350; London Poems,
350, 351 ; " The Scairth o' Bartle,"
352 ; humorous verse, etc., 352 ; The
Book of Orm, 352-354; its mysti
cism, faults, and beauties, 353, 354 ;
Napoleon Fallen, 354 ; The Drama
of Kings, 354 ; reformatory work,
355 ; St. Abe, 355 ; White Rose and
Red, 355 ; his prose writings, 355 ;
stage-plays, 355 ; faults of judgment
and style, 355, 356 ; " The Ballad
of Judas Iscariot," 356; "Coruisken Sonnets," 356 ; estimate of his
genius and prospects, 356 ; " The
Lights of Leith," 445 ; as a play
wright, 446.
Buddhism, 450.
" Bugle-Song," Tennyson's, 102.
Bulwers, the two, 268 ; and see Ed
ward, Lord Lytton, and Robert, Lord
Lytton.
Bunyan, 176.
Burbidge, Thomas, 243.
Burlesque, 272, 273.
Burns, 3, 22, 40, 219, 240, 415.
Byron, sentiment of his school, 4, 41 2 ;

493

at Harrow, 103 ; contrasted with


Tennyson, 196-198; their difference
in method, perception, imagination,
and subjectivity, 197, in influence,
198 ; his dramas, 295, 296 ; his
" Marino Faliero," and Swinburne's,
437. 438 ; and xe 22. 34. 39. 4'. 57.
74, 99, 104, 105, 107, 154, 189, 198,
199, 203, 235, 237, 240, 312,366,381,
390.39'. 4,4i2, 469Caine, T. Hall, his volume on Rossetti, 439 ; and see 465.
Call, Wathen M. W 457.
Callimachus, a saying of, 377.
Calverley, Charles Stuart, his PlyLeaves, 273 ; Translation of The
ocritus, 224, 275 ; and see 440.
Calvinism, 329.
Campanella, 448.
Campbell, Thomas, 198, 235.
Canning, George, 238.
Caprice, hurtful to Expression, 301.
Cary, Henry Francis, 235.
Carlyle, Thomas, 37, 257; on Ster
ling, 243 ; Sartor Resartus, 310.
" Carroll, Lewis." See C. L. Dodgson.
Casa Guidi Windows, Mrs. Brown
ing's, 136; reviewed, 139.
Caswall, Edward, 277.
Catullus, 60, 69, 224, 226, 273.
" Cavalier Tunes," Browning's, 302.
Cayley, Charles Bagot (d. 1883), 472.
Cenci, The, Landor's, 69.
Ccnci, The, Shelley's, 41.
Century ofRoundels, A, Swinburne's,
Chartist
Chapman,
Chandler,
Chastelard,
Charitable
Charicles,
436- Verse,
John,
Becker's,
Dowager,
George,
Swinburne's,
261,
277.122,
52.
262.
Landor's,
274,
386,401.
389
41.; re

494

INDEX.

viewed, 404-406 ; a romantic histori


cal drama, 404 ; its ideal of Mary
Stuart, 405 ; a strongly emotional
play, 405 ; and see 436, 466.
Chaucer, 28, 381, 435 ; the master of
Morris, 370 et seq.
Chaucerian metres, heroic, sestina,
and octosyllabic, 372, 373.
Chaucerian Period, 209.
Choric Verse, in Atalania, 387, 388.
" Christmas Eve," Browning's, 324.
Church Studies, Browning's, 324, 325.
Cicero, upon Death, 1 52.
Citation of Shakespeare, Lander's,
StCity of Dreadful Night, The, Thom
son's, 455, 456.
Clare, John, 235.
Clarke, Herbert E., 457.
Classical Studies, Mrs. Browning's,
1 18-120.
Classicism, in poetry, 4; Landor"s,
43, 62 ; must be liberal, not pedan
tic, 121 ; Tennyson's, 225, 226; con
trasted with the Gothic method,
313; the unities, 313; Italian clas
sicism, 313; Browning's, 336, 338;
Buchanan's, 348; in Swinburne's
early poems, 393 ; Symonds's, 448 ;
Anglo-classicism, 463; pseudo-clas
sicism, 467; Lang's, 475; and see
Atalanta, Keats, Shelley, The An
tique, University School, etc.
Climacterics in art-life, 164.
Closet-Drama, The, 296.
Clough, Arthur Hugh, Arnold's
" Scholar Gypsy," 98 ; life and
work, 243, 244 ; compared to Ster
ling, 243; his hexameter poem,
244 ; and see 396.
Cockney School, 103.
Coleridge, Hartley, 241, 243.
Coleridge, S. T., his definition of

Poetry, 9 ; and see 34, 36, 37, 74, 99,


180, 203, 235, 382, 401, 415.
Collins, Mortimer, 441.
Collins, William, 22, 66, 361, 382.
Colombe's Birthday, Browning's, 311,
33. 3'4Colonial Poetry, 468-470.
Color, 362 ; Browningss sense of, 339.
Comic Annual, Hood's, 78, 82, 89.
Comic Poetry, a misnomer, 78.
Composers, musical: Byrd, Wilbye,
and Weelkes, 102.
Composite School, otherwise the Idyl
lic, 5 ; Tennyson its master, 5 ; now
universal, 477 ; and see 204, 219,
271, 342, 413.
Comrades in Art, the Rossetti group,
357.
Conscientiousness
Mrs.
Swinburne's
Browning,
in Bothwell,
145
in Art,
; Rossetti's,
defective
406. 361in;
Conservatism, Tennyson's, 192, 423.
Construction,
Decoration, 289.
286; its relations to
Contemplative
School.
Poets. See Meditative
Conies Drdlatiques, Balzac's, 324.
Conventionalism, Browning's disre
gard of, 333, 338.
Conviction, Poetry of, 254, 261, 264,
Cook,
Counterparts,
Cooper,
Cotton,
Coruisken
457. Eliza,
Percy,
Thomas,
Sonnets,
259.
Literary,
441.261.
Buchanan's,
203, 211 356.
; and

see throughout Chapter VI.


Count jfulian, Landor's, 41.
Courthope, W. J., 471.
Court Verse, 473. See Society Verse.
Covvper, 22, 40, 58 ; his blank-verse,
161.
Cox, Frances Elizabeth, 278.

INDEX.
Crabbe, 162.
Craik, Dinah Maria Mulock, 254.
Cranch, Christopher Pearse, 275.
Crayon Verse. See Painting.
Creative Faculty, wanting in certain
ambitious poets, 477.
Criticism, its province, 4; Landor's
powers of, 64 ; comparative, its use
and abuse, 72 ; Arnold's, 99; poets
as critics of poetry, 99; Tennyson
and his critics, 151-153; verbal,
239; defects of recent, 286; Swin
burne and his critics, 390, 391 ;
Swinburne's critical genius and es
says, 401-404, 438 ; duty of the crit
ic, 411, 414; Austin's Poetry of the
Period, 450; as an industry, 479;
and see 480.
Croly, George, 235.
Cromwellian Period, 28, 115.
Cross, Mrs. See M. E. Lewes.
Cruikshank, George, 85.
" Cults," Shelley, Browning, etc., 430,
431 ; Art for beauty's sake, 477.
Culture, effect upon spontaneity, 3;
on creative art, 23, 406; the recent
period of, 23 ; over-restraint, 24 ;
breeding, 24; school of culture, 90;
good effect in case of Mrs. Brown
ing, 120; over-training, 248; criti
cism and scholarship, 343 ; poetry
for cultured people, 398 ; Symonds,
447 ; Miss Robinson, 463 ; Lang,
475; and see Over-culture, Univer
sity School, etc.
Cunningham, Allan, 235.
"Cup, The," Tennyson's, 418.
" Cyclops," imitated by Tennyson,
228.

495

Darley,
his melody,
George,365.2, 47, 191, 236, 249;
Darwin, Charles, 20.
Davis, Thomas, 260.
Dawson, W. J., 465.
Death of Marlowe, Home's, 248.
Death's Jest-Booh, Beddoes', 237.
Debonair Poets. See Society Verse.
Decoration,
289.
and Construction, 286,

Decorative Verse, 467.


Defence of Guenevere, Morris's, 367,
368, 370.
Democracy, in Great Britain, 423.
Democratic Poets, 260 ; often of aris
tocratic birth, 400.
De Musset, Alfred, compared with
Tennyson, 195.
De Quincey, Thomas, his estimate of
Landor, 63, 67; style, 401.
Derby, Edward, Lord, 275.
Descriptive Faculty and Verse, Ten
nyson's, 188; Hamerton's, 246;
Browning's, 307 ; Buchanan's, 349 ;
Morris's, 368, 369; Munby's, 454;
Gosse's English landscape, 459 ; and
see Nature, Scenic Tendency, etc.
Design, Arts of, 368.
De Vere, Aubrey Thomas, 242, 444.
Dialect-Verse, Tennyson's, 181, 420;
miscellaneous, 279, 470.
Dickens, 38 ; portrait of Landor, 57 ;
compared to Hood, 84-86.
Diction, Hood's, 88; Tennyson's,
179; Miss Barrett's, 126; Mrs.
Lewes', 254; of Paracelsus, 306;
Rossetti's revival of old English,
361 ; Morris's and Swinburne's, 379,
381 ; Wells's old English, 441 ; " Mi
chael Field's," 462.
Didacticism, 4, 242, 413.
Dante, ii, 51, 170, 276, 375; Ros- Dilettanteism, 59, 290; Goethe and
setti's translations, 360.
Arnold upon, 96.

IXDEX.

496
S0L3S3Disraeli, Isaac, 51.
Dithyrambic Verse

Diion, Richard Watson, 463.


Dobeli, Sydney, 367, 328.
Dobson, Austin, 273, 473, 474 ; Premcrbs in Porcelain, 473; Old World
Idyls, and At tke Sign of tht Lyre,
474 ; influence in England and
America, 474 ; and see 441, 466,
47Dodgson, C. L., 471.
Domett, Alfred, his Blacimeod Lyrics,
of,
256;256;Browning's
Ranolf andcharacterization
Awiohia, 257;
Flotsam and Jetsam, 445.
Don Juan, Byron's, 141.
Dore, Les Conies Dr&latiques, 324.
Dorothy, MunbVs, 454.
Dowden, Edward, 465.
Downing, Mary, 259,
Doyle, Sir Francis Hastings, 253.
Drama
127-129.
of Exile, Miss Barrett's, 124,
Drama of Kings, Buchanan's. 347,
" Dramatic
354Fragments," Procter's,
"3Dramatic Idyls, Browning's, 426.
Dramatic Periods : The early drama,
294, 295 ; Queen Anne's time, 295 ;
the recent aspect, 294-296.
Dramatic Poetry, and Poets : Landor's
dramatic genius and verse, 41, 42,
47, 48 ; Procter's, 106, 107 ; lyrical
interludes in dramatic verse, 109,
their relation, 109; Procter a dra
matic song-writer, 109 ; Tennyson's
genius not essentially dramatic, 189191 ; this opinion confirmed by
Queen Mary, 413; Bulwer's plays,
255; Browning chief of the recent

school, 294; his dramatic


294; Procter's definition of the
dramatic faculty, 294 ; the true his
toric era, 294; Byron's dramas,
296; Browning's dramatic lyrics,
296, 320 et sea. ; dramatic effects
in The Return of Ike Druses, 312;
subjective moral of Browning's lyr
ics, 330; his minute insight, 340;
Kossetti's dramatic gift, 365 ; con
stituents of great dramatic verse,
413; Swinburne's Chastelard and
Botkweil, 404 - 410 ; Tennyson's
later dramas, 41S, 419; personal
study of Life required, 419 ; Brown
ing's dramatic psychology, 431433 ; Swinburne's Mary Stuart, 436,
Marino Filiero, 437; "Michael
Field," 461 ; recent poetic drama,
471, 472; Merivale, 471 ; "Ross
Neil," 472; Wills, 472; Gilbert,
ib. ; and see R. H. Home, W.
Marston, A. Webster, J. L. Warren,
A. Austin, Mrs. Singleton, R.
Bridges, etc.
Dramatic Psvchology, 431-433.
" Dramatic Romances and Lyrics,"
Browning's, 321.
Dramatic Scenes, Procter's, preface
to, 103 ; reviewed, 105.
Dramatic School, New, 5, 6, 31 ; out
look in America, 291 ; need of a re
vival, 344.
Dramatis Persona, Browning's, 304 ;
reviewed, 321-329; inferior to Men
and Women, 322 ; faulty lyrics, 334.
Drayton, 180.
" Dream of Eugene Aram," Hood's,
84, 86.
Drury Lane Theatre, 314.
Dryden, 185, 232, 275.
Dry Sticks Fagoted, Landor's, 70.
Du Bellay, 474.

INDEX.
Dublin Newspaper Press, 260.
Dublin University Magazine, 255.
Dufferin, Lady, 260.
Duffy, Charles Gavan, 260.
Dunciad, The, 186.
Diirer, Albert, 362, 456.
Dutt, Toru.
Early Italian Poets, translations
Early
Earthly
Earnestness,
by Rossetti,
promise,
Paradise,
Rossetti's,
276,
menMorris's,
360.
of, 256.
362. reviewed,

497

Elliott, Charlotte,
Emerson,
Ebenezer,
Ralph Waldo,
83,
278.235.37, 112, 179;
Essay on " The Poet," 27 ; on tra
dition and invention, 164; on imi
tation and originality, 232; his
method, 301 ; and see 417, 442, 447,
Emotion,
457, and new
American
school
Poets.
of, 297 ; in
Browning's verse, 329 ; a source of
English
strength,
Idyls,
333.Tennyson's, 162; how
far modelled on Theocritus, 217-

372-378 ; epic rather than dramatic,


372 ; a treasury of historic myths
and legends, 372 ; its fascination,
37 2. 377 i Chaucerian verse, 372,
373 ; clear expression, 374 ; a virtu
oso's poem, 374 ; enormous length,
375- 377; harmonic plan, 375;
moral, 375-377.
Ease of Circumstances favorable to
art, in Tennyson's case, 199 ; effect
on Swinburne, 410.
" Easter-Day," Browning's, 324.
Eccentricity not a proof of genius,
297.
cole Intertnldiaire, the recent, 474.
Edmeston, James, 277.
Elegance, Poetic, Landor's, 44, 45.
Elegiac Measure, Munby's, 454, 455.
Elegiac Verse, Linton's " Threnody,"
271; Swinburne's, 435; and see
Adonais, Ave atque Vale, Epitaph
of Bion, Lycidas, Thyrsis, etc.
" Eliot, George." See M. E. Lewes.
Elizabethan Period, n, 28, 110, 115,
209, 248, 416; its dramatic style,
47, 413 ; songs and lyrics, 102, 104;
allegory, 176 ; Mrs. Browning on,
240 ; style caught by Swinburne in
his early dramas, 384, 385; "Mi
chael Field's " style, 462.

English
219. landscape, etc. See Descrip
live Faculty.
English Language, adapted for trans
English
lation of
Songs,
the Greek,
Procter's,
275. 109 ; re
viewed, 109-113; their virile qual
ity, m; convivial, 111; delicacy
Enoch
and pathos,
Arden, 112;
Tennyson's,
great variety,
177, 181,
112.
Erectheus,
Essay
Erotic
Esoteric
Epic
Euripides,
189.ofon
Verse,
Hades,
Quality,
Mind,
Swinburne's,
348Swinburne's,
; The,
Miss
translated
463.L.Barrett's,
Morris's,
434.by
395.Brown
116.
452.

ing. 336. 338Excursion,


Eve
Excess,
Evans,
of St.
Sebastian,
Swinburne's,
Agnes,
Wordsworth's,
Keats's,
282.392, 395,
341,imitated
439.
367.

by Alford, 242.
Execution, 383.
Expression, the aim of recent poetry,
13 ; of Tennyson's early works,
1 56 ; greater than invention among
the minor poets, 287 ; the poet's
special office, 298 ; the flower of
thought, 301 ; brilliant quality of

498

INDEX.

Figure-School. See Life School.


Findlater, Eric Bothwick, 278.
" Finola" (Mrs. Varian), 260.
Firmilian, Aytoun's, 262, 285.
First-Century Studies, Browning's,
325. 326.
Faber, Frederick William, 278.
Fiske, John,
of Things,
372. Tennyson's sense
Facility, 146; injurious to Browning, Fitness
324; Morris's, 377; Symonds's,
447-449 ; E. Arnold, 449 ; L. Morris, of, 187; Browning's disregard of,
451-453 ; Smith and others, 453, 454.
34FitzGerald, Edward, 276, 398, 440.
Faery Queene, The, 1S0.
Fitz-Gerald, Maurice Purcell, 275.
"Fair Ines," Hood's ballad, 76.
Fletcher, John, II, 102, 236, 294.
" Falcon, The," Tennyson's, 418.
Fame, Landor's, 66 ; sudden increase Fletcher of Saltoun, his famous say
of Browning's, 429.
ing, 260.
" Flower, The," Tennyson's, 152, 212.
Fancy, So, 272, 273, 471.
Fly-Leaves, Calverley's, 273.
Fantastic Verse, 285.
" Farringford School." See Idyllic Foote, Miss, the actress, 107.
Form, Browning's lack of, 339.
Poetry.
Fashion in thought and art, passing Forster, John, biographer of Landor,
37 ; upon Gebir, 40 ; and see 49,
vogues, 450, 476.
Fatalism, of Morris's poetry, 375,
57, 60, 69.
377 ; its adverse effect, 377 ; of Fourier, Charles, theory of the pas
Swinburne's Atalanla, 387.
sions, 56; his famous apothegm,
" Father Prout." See Francis Ma- 329 ; and see 430.
honey.
Fox, W. J., 257.
Faust, compared with Paracelsus, 305. Franco-Sapphic School, 396.
Fazio, Milman's, 236.
Fra Rupert, Landor's, 42.
Feeling, high quality of Mrs. Brown Fraser's Magazine, 255.
ing's, 126.
Fraser-Tytler. See C. C. Liddell.
Fellow-craftsmanship, Browning on, Freedom, Browning's ideal of, 308 ;
limits of, in Art, 339 ; radicalism of
Female
339- Poets, 120, 254, 279-281 ; their Swinburne's, 392.
independence and emotion, 279.
French Forms, Gosse's poetry in, 459 ;
Ferishtah's Fancies, Browning's, 427.
Dobson's, 474 ; Lang's Ballades,
Fes/us, Bailey's, 263.
etc., 475 ; vogue in England and
Field, Kate, her portrait of Landor,
America, 476, 477.
in The Atlantic Monthly, 70.
French Influence, upon Swinburne,
" Field, Michael," Callirhoe, Brutus 384. 393Ultor, etc., 461, 462 ; diction and French School, 380.
dramatic quality, 462.
Frere, John Hookham, 235, 274.
Fifine at the Fair, Browning's, 336- Fuller, Margaret, 62.
337. 340.
Swinburne's, 379; carried to ex
cess by him, 382, 3S3.
Extravagance, 66 ; of fantasy in Hood,
85; Swinburne's, 392.

INDEX.
Garibaldi, 64, 400.
Garnett, Richard, 444.
Garrulity, Browning's, 306, 324.
Gautier, Theophile, Memorial to, 398.
Gay, John, 232.
Gebir, Landor's, 39, 40, 68.
Gebirus, Latin version of the forego
ing, 4iGenius, its independence, 1 ; needs
appreciation, 68 ; unconscious train
ing of, 118; certain men of, unsuited to their period, 236, 249 ; pe
culiarity of Browning's, 293, 432434 ; distinguished from talent, 321;
Rossetti a man of, 359 ; genius to
be judged at its best, 411 ; freedom
of, 412; vitality of works of, 441 ;
J. Thomson's, 455.
Gentleman's Magazine, 48.
" George Eliot." See Marian Evans
Lewes.
Georgian Period, 34, 115; contrasted
with the Victorian, 196; revival of
poetry in, 240, 241 ; sentiment and
passion of, 412; and see 464, 481,
Byron, Keats, Scott, Shelley, etc.
Gesta Romanorum, 372.
Gifford, William, 286.
Gilbert, W. S., Original Plays, etc.,
472.
Gilfillan, Robert, 259.
"Giovanna
Godiva,"ofcompared
Naples, Landor's,
to " Hylas,"
42. 211,

499

On Viol and Flute, King Erik, New


Foems, Firdausi in Exile, 459 ; char
acteristics, 460.
Gothic Methods and Studies, 313,
392" Grand Manner, The," 93.
Gray, David, 245, 264, 265 ; friend
ship with Buchanan, 348.
Gray, Thomas, 40, 66, 382.
Great Britain, a crisis imminent, 482.
Greatness in Art, how constituted,
341Greece, spirit of her idealism, 10 ;
rise and decline of her poetry, 238,
239 ; England compared to, 239.
Greek-Christian Poets, read and anno
tated by Mrs. Browning, 120, 123.
Greek Idyls, 201-233. ^ee Tennyson
and Theocritus; also, Bion and
Moschus.
Greek and Latin Verses, Landor's,
43, 62 ; Swinburne's, 398, 399 ; the
latter's statement of their value to
the maker, 399.
Griffin, Geftld, 260.
"Guenevere," Tennyson's, 177, 178.
Guido, his " Aurora," 9, 10.

Hake, Thomas Gordon, 282, 444.


Hallam, Arthur Henry, 237, 243.
Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 246, 368.
Hamilton, Janet, 279.
Hannibal, Prof. Nichol's, 255.
Hardy, Thomas, 454.
213.
Goethe, quoted, 20 ; on dilettanteism, Hare, the brothers Francis and Juli
96, 341 ; English translators of, 276; Harold,
us, 37.Tennyson's, 419.
on distinction between the artist
and the amateur, 289 ; and see 37, Harte, F. Bret, 469.
" Haunted House," Hood's, 84.
99. 192Hawker, Robert Stephen, 440.
Goldsmith, 22, 66.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 366.
Gordon, A. Lindsay, 469.
Gosse, Edmund, 458-460, 470 ; admi Hawtrey, Edward Craven, 275.
rable prose, 458 ; poetical works Hazlitt, William, 37.

500

INDEX.

Hebraism, Browning's, 325; Swin


burne's, 387, 393.
Hebrew language, Miss Barrett's
study of, 127.
Hemans, Mrs., 120, 237.
Heine, his idealism, 18 ; the Reisebilder, 356; and see 92, 113, 455,
468.
Hellenics, Landor's, 39, 42-45.
Herbert, George, 28, 283.
Herder, a saying of Jean Paul, 147.
Heroic Idyls, Landor's, 70.
Herrick, Robert, 76.
Hervey, Thomas Kibble, 256.
Hesiod, 205.
Hexameter Verse, the Pastoral or
Bucolic, 211, 227; Clough's, 244;
Kingsley's and Hawtrey's, 251.
Heywood, Thomas, 102.
Hillard, George S., 143.
Hillard, Kate, 104.
Hogarth, his method in Art, 351.
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 273.
Home, J. Wyville, 465.
Homer, method of, 9, 178; Arnold
on translating, 99 ; Tennyson as a
translator of, 182; his simplicity,
267; English translations of, 275;
imitated by Morris, 370; and see
161, 204, 205, 215, 472.
Homer, Winslow, 454.
Hood's Magazine, 82, 86.
Hood, Thomas, review of his life and
writings, 72-90 ; the poet of sympa
thy, 72 ; of the crowd, 73 ; his birth,
73 ; character and genius, 73, 74 ;
early life, 74 ; youthful career as a
writer, 74, 75 ; early poems in the
manner of Spenser, 75 ; their beau
ties and defects, 75; his exquisite
lyrical ballads, imaginative odes,
etc., 76 ; these more truly poetical
than work of the verbal school, 76;

his humor, 77 ; Odes and Addresses,


Whims and Oddities, London Mag
azine, etc., 77 ; a jester by profes
sion, 77; Hood's Own, and the
Comic Annuals, 78; his poorer
verse and prose, 78 ; " Ode to Rae
Wilson," 78 ; Miss Kilmansegg, 79,
80; a sustained, powerful, and
unique satire, ibid. ; Thackeray and
Hood, 80; detrimental effect of
poverty upon his work, 81 ; a jour
nalist-poet, 82 ; London's poet,
83; his understanding of the poor,
83 ; Hood and Dickens, 84-86 ;
similarity of their methods, 84 ;
alike in melodramatic work, extrav
agance, humane feeling, 85, 86 ;
"Dream of Eugene Aram," 86;
" Song of the Shirt," 86, 87 ; " Bridge
of Sighs," 87,88 ; general characteris
tics, 88 ; Mrs. Broderip's Memorials,
88 ; his wife, 89 ; his closing hours,
89; sympathy of the English peo
ple, 89; his death, 90; monument
to his memory, 90; and see 5, 26,
56, 91, 92, 103, 180, 199, 236, 238,
272.
Horace, 200, 204, 273 ; English trans
lations of, 274, 472 ; and see 473.
Home, Richard Hengist, 2, 130 ; gen
ius and works, 248-250 ; dramas,
248 ; temperament, 249 ; Orion, 249 ;
Ballad Romances, 249; unsuited to
his period, 249; his death, 439;
Laura Dibalzo, 440.
Houghton, Lord. See Milnes.
House of Life, Rossetti's, 366.
Howells, William Dean, 251.
Howitt, William and Mary, 259.
Hugo Victor, 165, 393, 400, 401, 424,
435 ; Les Miserables, 482.
Human Tragedy, The, Austin's, 451.
Humor, Hood's, 73, 74, 77 ; deficient

INDEX.

50I

in Mrs. Browning, 146 ; Tennyson's, ly ended, 342 ; the " Farringford


School," 345 ; Munby's Dorothy,
163; Buchanan's, 352; Swinburne's
454 ; and see 320, 413.
lack of, 39s; W. S. Gilbert, 472.
Idyls and Legends of Itrverburn, Bu
Hunt, Holman, 358.
chanan's, 348-350; compared with
Hunt, Leigh, his poetic mission, 103 ;
estimate of his quality and life, 103, Wordsworth's and Tennyson's idyls,
see
104; 37,
Hunt
51. and
75. Io6.
Procter,
23^. 104;
257. 274,
and 348; their truth to nature, 349,350.
Idyls of the King, Tennyson's, 94;
reviewed, 175-180 ; an epic of ideal
411, 412, 460, 477.
chivalry, 175 ; based on Malory's
Huxley, T. H., strictures on Expres
romance, 176 ; allegorical tendency,
sion, 13, 26.
176; grown from a series of idyls
" Hylas," compared with " Godiva,"
to an epic, 177 ; its early and later
211-213 ; and see 398.
blank - verse, 177 ; " Morte d'ArHymnology, recent, 277, 278 ; its char
acteristics, 277 ; early and later thur," and the four succeeding idyls,
composers, 277 ; translations of 177, 178 ; " Gareth and Lynette,"
179 ; the style and diction of this
the Latin and German hymns, 277,
poem, 179 ; the subject, 180 ; dedi
278.
cation, 187 ; " Balin and Balan,"
Hyperion, Keats's, 40, 161, 249, 397.
420; and see 220, 371, 419, 425.
Icelandic Translations, by Mor Imaginary Conversations, Landor's,
ris and Magniisson, 371.
So. 59. 63, 68, 70.
Iconoclasm, scientific, 7 ; the poet not Imagination, its action in youth, 117 ;
an iconoclast, 300.
Miss Barrett's, 1 28 ; recent stimu
lants to, 343 ; Rossetti's, 363, 365 ;
Ideal, how conceived and perfected,
placid, in Morris, 373, 374, 378 ;
339Swinburne's, 397, 411; recent sub
Ideality, poetic, iS ; restrictions to,
23 ; Landor's, 46 ; of Morris and stitutes for, 479 ; modern deficiency
Keats, 367 ; Gilbert's Plays, 472.
of, 482.
Imitation, literary, the culling pro
Idyllia Heroica, Landor's, 43.
cess, 215; " Owen Meredi th's," 269 ;
Idyllic Period, Dialect-verse a mark
of, 279.
and see 290.
Idyllic Poetry and School, 2, 4 ; qual Importance, law of, in Art, 48.
ities of the school, 5 ; Landor's idyl " In a Balcony," Browning's, 306, 331.
lic verse, 44 ; Mrs. Browning's lack Incertitude, Mrs. Browning's, 145.
of idyllic quality, 146; method of Independent, The, 143.
Tennyson, 1 59, 187 ; the recent Independent Singers, among minor
school, how far modelled upon the
poets, 248-253.
Alexandrian, see Tennyson and Individuality, Meredith's, 447.
Theocritus, 201-233 ! *ne t*u6 idyl, Inequality, 293, 338.
233, 269; minor idyllic poets, 269- Ingelow, Jean, 26, 280, 440.
271 ; their strength and weakness, Ingoldsby Legends, Barham's, 238.
269 ; mission of the idyllists near Ingram, John Kells, 260.

renewed, 160-17: : tie


"'Jacobite Ballads," Thombury's,
tiepes, 166 ; its f-jra. a
meet, 169; a -i-fina;
Te=rej. Fraacss, Lord, 2S6.
rnythm, 169; bxrac
Jocosms, Browning's, 427.
170; faith aad doobt, 170;
J Does, Eber.ezer. 261.
srifTin:*- marrrv^, 17c
and grief, 171 ; genera; q^itr. 171 ; Jooes. Ernest. 263.
acmired by authors. 171 : iar -?cape- I dosoc, Ben, 76, 102, 236, 406.
Journalism, as a railing, injurious to
1S8 ; and see iac, 195, 541, 425.
a poet. Si ; Hood a journalist-poet,
/m Attm, 7~-ic. Browning"*, 4:5.
82
; instance of an editor, 82 ; the
Inspiration, Mrs. Browning's faiih in,
148; larking in the most proiifc newspaper age, 343, 479 ; L. Blanchard, 441.
new poets, 477.
Intellectuality, Lander's, 33; of Ar Keats, his ideality, iS ; how far a
nold's verse, 91 ; Tennyson's, 167 :
progenitor of the Victorian School,
.too marked in Pippu Pastes, 318; ' 104, 105 ; induence on Tennyson,
" Caliban," 327 ; favorable to lon
1 55 ; Morris compared to, 367 ; and
gevity, 417.
see 4, 5, 26, 31, 35, 40, 74, 103, 104,
Introspective Poetry, 432.
106, 121, 154, 157, 161, 167, 180, 199,
Invention, demand for, 478.
209, 236, 240, 245, 299, 305, 320,348,
Inversions, 361.
361, 380, 3S2, 396, 412, 460, 467, 476,
" Inverury Poet," 261.
477.
Ion, Talfourd's, 236, 296.
Keble, John, 237.
Ireland, 482.
Keegan, John, 260.
Irish Minstrelsy, 259, 260.
Kemble. Charles, 107.
Irreverence to Art, 304,
Kenyon. John, 14a
Irving, Henry, and Tennyson's dra Kensal Green Cemetery, 83.
mas, 418 ; and see 466.
Kensington - Stitch Verse. See Soci
Isabella, Keats's, 367.
ety Verse.
Isles of Loch Awe, Hamerton's, 246. King Arthur, Bulwer's, 255.
Isometric Songs, in The Princess, 166; King, Harriet E. Hamilton, 454.
nature of their mode, 218 ; popu Kingsley, Charles, 26, 43, 92, 262;
larized by Tennyson, 218.
upon Theocritus, 20S ; his poetic
Italian Period, and Influence, II ; al
works and genius, 251 ; and see 460.
legory, 176 ; Browning's studies, King Victor andKing Charles, Brown
305, 313; debt of English litera
ing's, 310, 313.
ture to, 313 ; effect upon Rossetti, Knowles, James Sheridan, 236, 419.
360, 378, upon Symonds, 448, Knox, John, Swinburne's characteri
Gosse, 460, Miss Robinson, 464; Knox,
zation,
Isa404,
Craig,
407-409280.
rispetti and stornelli, 464, 468 ; and
Kossuth, 62, 126.
see 461.

INDEX.
"Lady Geraldine's Courtship,"
Mrs. Browning's, 130, 315.
La Farge, John, 362.
La Fontaine, 61.
Lake School, 242, 347, 390, 412.
Lamb, Charles, 37, 51, 103.
Lancashire Songs, Waugh's, 279.
Landon, Miss, 120, 237.
Landor, Robert, 57.
Landor, Walter Savage, illustrating
growth of the art-school, 5 ; quoted,
1 5 ; review of life and writings, 3381 ; a pioneer of the Victorian
School, 33 ; birth, 34 ; prolonged
career, 34 ; retention of power, 3436 ; sustained equality, 36 ; univer
sality, 36 ; prose and poetry, 37 ; de
ficient in sympathy, 37 ; friends, 37,
38 ; early rhymed productions, 39 ;
Poems, English and Latin, 39 ; a
Moral Epistle, 39 ; Gebir, 40 ; mis
cellaneous pieces, 41 ; dramatic gen
ius and work, 41-42, 47, 48 ; Count
Julian, 41 ; the Trilogy, 42 ; the
Hellenics, 42-44 ; Idyllia Heroica,
43 ; Poemata et Inscriptiones, 43 ;
Latin verse, 43, 45, 62 ; qualities as
an artist, 44-47 ; blank-verse, 45 ;
lyrical affluence, 46 ; restrictions, 48,
49 ; lack of theme, 49 ; great as a
writer of English prose, 49 ; Imag
inary Conversations, 50 ; Citation of
Shakespeare, 51 ; the Pentameron,
51 ; Pericles and Aspasia, 52-54 ;
personal history and character con
sidered, 54-71; temperament, 55,
56 ; extraordinary disposition and
career, 55; physical gifts, 56; inde
pendence, 56, 57 ; vivacity, 57 ; por
trait by Dickens, 57 ; an amateur,
58 ; but not a dilettant, 59 ; his love
of nature, 60 ; biography by Forster,
60 ; affection for animals, 61 ; clas

503

sicism, 62 ; radicalism, 62 ; learning,


63 ; republicanism, 64 ; estimate of
America, 64 ; critical powers, 64 ;
technical excellence, 65 ; poetic ex
travagance, 66 ; fame, 66 ; desire for
appreciation, 67 ; editions of his
works, 66, 67 ; lines to Ablett, 68 ;
Landor at seventy, 69 ; Last Fruit
off an Old Tree, 69 ; Dry Sticks Fag
oted, 70 ; Heroic Idyls, 70 ; Landor
venerated by Kate Field, A. G.
Swinburne, and other young admir
ers, 70, 7 1 ; his death, 71; his clas
sicism distinct from Mrs. Brown
ing's, 122 ; opinion of " Aurora
Leigh," 142 ; on Shakespeare's imi
tations, 232 ; sonnet to Browning,
311; Swinburne compared to, 384;
Swinburne's stanzas to, 396 ; and
see 4, 30, 99, 103, 167, 191, 198, 236,
33. 336. 386, 39s. 400, 412, 423, 435Landscape.
Lang,
440, 446.
Andrew,
SeeBallads,
Descriptive
etc., Faculty.
of Old
France, Ballades in Blue China,
Rhymes d la Mode, 475 ; Helen of
Languages,
Troy, il..; the
and see
Greek
466, and
472, English
476.
La
Last
contrasted,
Saisiaz,
Fruit offan
etc..206.
Browning's,
Old Tree, Landor's,
426.

Last
69. Poems, Mrs. Browning's, 144.
Latest Schools, 281 ; decoration a
main end of, 286.
Latin Hymns, 277.
Latin Idyls, Landor's, translated, 69.
Latin Students' Songs, Symonds's
Wine, Women, and Song, 449.
Latin Verse. See Greek and Latin
Latter-Day
Verses. Poets. See Chapters X.
and XI. ; their position and embar-

54

INDEX.

rassments, 342, 343; remedial ef


forts, 344; dramatic instinct, 344;
four representative names, 345 ;
prodigal of verse, 345.
Laureates, Warton, Pye, etc., 34;
Tennyson, 172, 424 ; Southey and
Wordsworth, 424.
Lawlessness, evils of, exemplified,
340. 34iLaws
339-of Art, their beneficent reaction,
Lays of Ancient Rome, Macaulay's,
25a
Leadership in Art, often dependent
on personal bearing, 357 ; prolonga
tion of Tennyson's and Browning's,
415-418, 433 ; Swinburne's, 434.
Learning, Landor's, 63 ; not a substi
tute for Imagination, 479.
Lee-Hamilton, E. J., 465.
Lefroy, E. C, 466.
Leopardi, 455.
Letter from a young English poet,
299.
Lewes, Marian Evans, 106, 120, 254,
440.
Lewis,
study,Tayler,
121. his theory of classical
Liddell,
464. Catherine C. (Fraser-Tytler),
Life and Death of fason, Morris's,
370, 371.
Life-Drama, Smith's, 263.
Life-School, Browning the founder of
the modern, 320 ; younger repre
sentatives, 320; portraiture a high
art, 321 ; Rossetti's drawings and
poems, 359.
Light, 362.
'Lightness of Touch, 272.
Light of Asia, The, E. Arnold's, 449.
Limitations, Tennyson's, 188; Brown
ing's, 322 ; Buchanan's, 350.

Linton, William James, 260, 261, 36S ;


ClaribcL, etc, 270; versatility, 271.
Literary Market, the, criticism,
book-making, etc., 464.
Locker, Frederick, 273.
Lockhart, John Gibson, 235.
" Locksley Hall Sixty Years After,"
Tennyson's, 421, 422.
London, its humane satirists and po
ets, 86, 470, 471.
London Magazine, 77, 82, 107.
London Poems, Buchanan's, 350, 351.
London's Poet (Hood), 83.
Longevity, 180; of intellectual poets,
417.
Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 106,
254, 302, 417, 423; translation of
Dante, 276; and see American Po
ets.
Longfellow, W. P. P, quoted, 480,
481.
" Lotos-Eaters," Tennyson's, likeness
to portions of the Greek Idyls, 214217.
Love, its effect upon a woman's gen
ius, 132.
Love Sonnets of Proteus, Blunt's, 460.
Lover, Samuel, 258.
Lowell, James Russell, remark upon
Landor, 36; "Commemoration
Ode," 400; and see 461, and Amer
ican Poets.
Luetic, Lytton's, 268.
Lucretius, 20, 32, 226.
" Lucretius," Tennyson's, 181.
Luggie, The, Gray's, 265.
Luria, Browning's, reviewed, 310,
311; exhibits the author's favorite
characterization, 310; dedicated to
Landor, 311 ; and see 319.
" Lycidas," Milton's, 99, 396; com
pared with In Memoriam, 168.
" Lycus the Centaur," Hood's, 75.

INDEX.

SOS

Lyra Germanica, etc., 278.


Lyrical Poetry, refinement of Landor's, 45 ; Arnold's lacking flow,
92; Miss Barrett's, 129; distinction
between a lyric and a song, 101 ;
views of R. H. Stoddard, 101, 102 ;
Browning's early lyrics, 302 ; dra
matic quality, 320 ; his occasional
lyrics, 328, 329; their suggestiveness, 329; defects, 329; Rossetti's
lyrical faculty, 365; Swinburne's,
394. 395- 396. 434-436; Tennyson's
later lyrics, 419-422 ; E. Mackay,
461.
Lyte, H. F., 277.
Lytton, Edward, Lord, a novelistpoet, 254; King Arthur, 255; dra
mas, 255 ; translations, 274 ; re
marks on Horace, 275; and see
441.
Lytton, Robert, Lord, 267-269; Lucile, 268 ; likeness to his father,
268 ; his imitation of Tennyson
and Browning, 269; and see 320,
328.

Magmisson, E., 371.


Mahabharata, the, E. Arnold's ver
sions, 450.
Mahoney, Francis, 272.
Malory, Sir Thomas, his black-letter
romance, 176.
Manfred, Byron's, 41.
Mangan, James Clarence, 260.
Mannerism, of the new schools, 286;
Swinburne's, 383.
Marino Faliero, Swinburne's, 437.
Market, the Literary, 479, 480.
Marlowe, 102, 442.
Marriage, Procter's, 108 ; Mrs. Brown
ing's, 132 ; essential to full growth
of a woman's genius, 132-136; re
lation to Art, 134; with respect to
the husband, 134, 135; to the wife,
J3SMarston, Westland, 282, 471.
Marston, Philip Bourke, 282, 440.
Martin,
paraphrase
translations,
Theodore,
of276.
Horace,
Bon Gualtier,
274 ; Danish
272 ;

Macaulay, Thomas Babington,


250, 251, 260.
MacCarthy, Denis Florence, 259 ; se
lections from Calderon, 276.
Macdonald, George, 264.
Mackay, Charles, 259.
Mackay, Eric, Love Letters of a Vio
linist, etc., 460.
Maclagan, Alexander, 279.
Macready, the Tragedian, 107, 236,
3d8. 39Madrigals, Stoddard's selection of,
101.
Magazines, 255.
Maginn, William, 235.
Magnitude, in Art, differing from
greatness, 377.

M.ary Stuart, Swinburne's, 436.


Marzials, Th^ophile, 284, 285, 470.
Massey, Gerald, 263, 355.
Massie, Richard, 278.
Massinger, 103.
Masterpieces, not recently produced,
478.
Masters, in Art, their triumph over
restrictions, 30.
Material, Poetic, 262, 334.
Matter, his account of the Alexan
drian School, 205.
Maud, and other Poems, Tennyson's,
173. '77.
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 424. .
Mazzini, 64, 400, 423, 435.
McGee, Thomas D'Arcy, 260.

"Marvell,
Mary Arden,"
Andrew,E.28.Mackay's, 461.

506

I.XDEX.

Mediaeval Studies, Browning's, 324, Mirabeau, 399.


325; Swinburne's, 392.
Mirandola, Procter's, 107.
Mediocrity, popularity of, 452.
Miscellaneous Poets. The various
Meditative School, its minor poets, groups, schools, and minor poets
241-248; general spirit of, 246- of the Victorian Period. See Chap
ters VII. and VIII., 234-292; an
24S ; weakness and decline, 248 ; de
era fairly represented by its miscel
spondent tone, 287 ; and see 96-98.
Melody, Rossetti's, 362, 365; Swin
laneous poets, 234; early situation
and outlook, 234; " retired list,"
burne's, 383, 395.
235, 236; minor dramatists, 236;
Memorials of Hood, by Mrs. Brodesentimentalists, 237 ; skill and re
rip, 88.
Men and Women, Browning's, 321- finement of recent minor poets,
240; those of the Elizabethan Pe
328 ; his representative book, 322 ;
riod, 240; influence of Wordsworth
general excellence, 322.
the Meditative School, 241-248;
Meredith, George, 271, 447.
its characteristics, 247 ; decline,
Merivale, H. C, 471.
248 ; independent singers, 248-253 ;
Metaphysical Poetry, 163, 341 ; and
see Transcendentalism.
poetry of successful prose-writers,
251 ; inferior novelist-poets, 253
Metempsychosis, literary, 335.
255 ; magazinists, 255 ; diffusion of
Method, Poetic, evils of unwise, 334,
poor verse, 256; a few men of early
337.
promise, 256-258; song - writers,
Metre, of In Memoriam, 169; of
258-261 ; English and Scottish, 258,
"The Daisy," 174; Swinburne's
259; Irish, 260; Democratic and
novel variations, 395; Ave atque
Chartist, 261 ; recent errors and af
Vale, 397.
fectations, 262, 285 ; the RhapsoMiddlcmarch, George Eliot's, 254.
dists, or the " Spasmodic School,"
Midsummer Holiday, A, Swinburne's,
262-265 ; influence of Tennyson and
435Browning, 265-269 ; false simplicity,
Millais, the artist, 358.
266; minor idyllic poets, 269-271;
Miller, Thomas, 259.
vers de sociiti, satire, parody, etc.,
Millet, J. F., 454, 455.
272, 273; translators and transla
Milman, Henry Hart, 236.
tion, 273-276 ; hymnology, 277, 278 ;
Milnes, Richard Monckton (Lord
dialect-verse, 279; female poets,
Houghton), 37, 245, 440.
279-281; latest schools, 281-286;
Milton, his blank-verse, 46; Latinism,
psychological and Neo-Romantic
161 ; plan of an Arthurian epic,
group, 281-286; poetry of the fan
180 ; the Greek idyls, 232 ; his po
tastic and grotesque, 285; want of
etic canon, 353; and see 37, 58, 60,
wholesome criticism, 286 ; " schol
119, 154, 156, 175, 184, 209, 292,
ar's work in poetry," 286 ; tone of
299. 3Sl. 442, 47.
the minor philosophic poets, 287 ;
Mind-Reading, Browning's, 432.
that of the idyllists, romancers, etc.,
Minor
period,
Poets,
28. 6; how affected by their
287; present outlook, 289; British

INDEX.
and American poets contrasted,
290 ; freshness and individuality of
the latter, 290; meaning of the re
cent aspect, 291 ; reflex influence of
America upon the motherland, 291 ;
the future, 292 ; great number of the
minor Victorian poets, 286, 344;
necrology, 439, 442 ; a prolific con
tingent, 447-454 ; a look round the
latest field, 458-475; recent lack of
assumption, 458; scenic tendency,
465 ; university school, 462, etc. ;
aesthetic group, 467 ; colonial, etc.,
468-470; society - verse, 473-475;
want of national tone, 480-482.
Miscellanies, Swinburne's, 438.
Miss Kilmansegg, Hood's, 79, 80, 84,
85.
Mitford,
Miss
236. Barrett,
John,
Mary 242.
Russell,
123; dramas,
portraitetc.,
of

Mixed
Moir,
Moliere,
Monastic
David
School,
298.
Studies,
Macbeth,
319. Browning's,
255.
324,

507

practice in the arts of design, 367,


368 ; pleasant ease of his poetry,
368; The Defence of Guenevere,
368, 369 ; landscape, ib. ; his ear
ly work like Rossetti's, 369; PreRaphaelite ballads, 369; The Life
and Death of fason, 370, 37 1 ; a
notable raconteur, 370, 372 ; his
close knowledge of antiquities, 370,
374 ; lack of variety, 37 1 ; transla
tions from the Icelandic, etc., 371,
372 ; The Earthly Paradise, 372378 ; a successor to Boccaccio and
Chaucer, 372, 375; not often highly
imaginative, 373, 378 ; possessed of
clear vision and speech, 374 ; fatal
istic moral of his verse, 375, 377 ;
excessive facility, 377 ; his station
among the Neo-Romantic leaders,
378 ; Saxon diction, 379 ; social re
form, 433 ; translations of Homer,
Virgil, etc., ib. ; Sigurd the Volsung,
ib. ; and see 40, 357, 392, 401, 450.
Morte Darthur, Le, Malory's, 176.
Morte a"Arthur, Tennyson's, 161, 177,
220.
Moschus. See Bion and Moschus.
Motherwell, William, 235.
Movement, the epic swiftness, 166.
Miiller, Max, 372.
Munby, Arthur J., Dorothy, etc., 454.
Mundi et Cordis, Wade's, 256.
My Beautiful Lady, Woolner's, 270.
Myers, Ernest, 465.
Myers, Frederic W. H., 246, 446.
" My Last Duchess," Browning's, 321,
322, 337, 425Mysticism. See Transcendentalism.
Myths and Legends, of The Earthly
Paradise, 372.

32SMontgomery, James, 235.


Montgomery, Robert, 256.
Moore, Thomas, 102, 203, 235, 238,
258.
Moral Epistle, Landor's, 39.
Moralistic Group, 242.
Morley, Henry, 441.
Morris, Lewis, 451-453.
Morris, William, Icelandic Transia
tions, 276; a Neo-Romantic poet,
282-284; associated with Rossetti
and Swinburne, 345, 358 ; decora
tive art-work, 358 ; review of his
career and works, 366-378 ; an Ar
tist of the Beautiful, 366 ; serenity, Nairn, Baroness, 120.
366; compared with Keats, 367; Napier, Sir William, 38.

5o8

INDEX.

Napoleon
" NapoleonFallen,
III. inBuchanan's,
Italy," Mrs.347,
Brown
354. A'ote on Charlotte Bronte, A, Swin
burne's, 438.
ing's, 143.
Notes on Poems and Reviews, Swin
burne's, 39a
Narrative Verse, Morris a master of,
Novel, The, supplying the place of
37. 372Nation,
Natural
Nature, Landor's
The (Dublin),
method,
inlove
Art,
of,
260.
38.
60 ; Buchan
the drama, 25, 47, 295.
Novelist-Poets, Kingsley and Thack
eray, 251 ; inferior names, 253-255 ;
Meredith, 447.
an's, 349 ; Swinburne's slight regard
"Necrology,
Neale,
Neil,
for, 401.
John
Ross,"
ofMason,
472.
twelve277.
years, 439-442. Novels in Verse, 453.
Novel-Writing, diversion to, 479.
Neo-Romantic School, 6, 281-286 ; led
by Browning, Rossetti, Swinburne,
281 ; French Romanticism, 284 ;
carried to an extreme by Marzials,
284, 285 ; relative positions of the
leaders, 361, 378 ; Lang's Ballads of
Old France, 475 ; its French min
strelsy an exotic, 477 ; and see 393,
413, 416, 440, 445, also Romanti
Nesbit,
Neukomm,
New
cism.Departure,
E., 464.
Chevalier,
a change
108. from the

"New
Newman,
New
idyllic
Monthly
Princeton
method,
Francis
John
Magazine,
Henry,
Review,
342.
William,
245,
82.
The,"
275.
278. quot

Objective Dramatic Mode, con


trasted with Browning's, 431-433.
Objectivity, in poetry, 47 ; Arnold's,
92, 95 ; dramatic, 295 ; Morris's,
366. 367Obscurity, only the semblance of im
agination, 305.
Obsolete Forms, 361.
" Ode on the French Republic," Swin
burne's, 400.
" Ode to Rae Wilson," Hood's, 78.
Odes and Addresses, Hood's, 77.
"CEnone," Tennyson's, the elegiac
refrain, 213, resemblance to vari
ous passages in Theocritus, 2t3214.
Omar Khayyam, Rubdiydt of, 276, 398,
456.
Optimism, 422, 433.
Orientalism,
Toru Dutt, E.
470.Arnold, 449, 450 ;

ed, 481.
Nihelungen-Lied, 372.
Non-Creative
Noel,
Nicoll,
Nichol,Roden,
Robert,
John, 270,
255.
Period,
261.446.from Milton to Originality,
consisting,Tennyson's,
297 ; Browning's,
232 ; in what
293,
297. 32. 338. 341 ; Buchanan's, 348.
Original Plays, Gilbert's, 472.
North-Coast
Norse
Cowper,
Literature,
21,Poems,
22. 374.Buchanan's, 350, Orion, Home's, 249.
Orphic
and Buchanan,
utterances,347,
of the
354.Lake School
"Othello,"
O'Shaughnessy,
440.
310. Arthur W. E., 284,
Norton,
35'- Caroline Elizabeth Sarah,
120, 237.

INDEX.
Over-Culture, Arnold's reaction from,
97 ; evils of, 124.
Over-Possession, 145, 298.
Over-Production, dangers of the liter
ary market, 470.
" Owen Meredith." See Robert, Lord
Lytton.
Oxford Group, 463. See University
School.

Patriotic Verse, 259, 260.


Paul, C. Kegan, 472.
Payne, John, 283, 445.
Peacock, Thomas Love, 235.
Pedantry, the rage for elucidation,

Peel,
43-Sir Robert, 89.
Peerage, the, Tennyson and, 422-424.
Pendennis, Thackeray's, 142.
Pentameron, Landor's, 48, 51.
Pacchiarotto, Browning's, 425.
Pericles and Aspasia, Landor's, 38,
Painting, its recent services to poetry,
51. 54358 ; the Pre - Raphaelite method, Persian Quatrain, 283.
358 ; Rossetti's drawings, etc., 359 ; "Pessimism,
Peter Pindar,"
422 ; 238.
J. Thomson, 456.
Crayon Verse, etc., 465.
Palgrave, Francis Turner, 245-248; re Petrarch, II.
semblance to Arnold, 245 ; his Reign Petty, Sir William, his declaration of
of Law, 245, 247 ; his attitude, 247 ; faith, 192.
hymns, 278 ; and see 444.
Pfeiffer, Emily, 453, 454.
Parables, Hake's, 282.
Philanthropy, Hood's and Dickens's,
Paracelsus, Browning's, 305-308 ; ana
83, 84; Arnold's, 91 ; Mrs. Brown
lytic power, 305 ; compared with ing's, 129.
Faust, 305 ; merits and defects, 306 ; Philip Van Artevelde, Taylor's, 237.
garrulity, 306 ; fine diction, 306, 307 ; Philips, Ambrose, 232.
Philistinism, its defence and arraign
blank-verse, 307 ; meaning, 307.
Paradise Lost, 161, 175, 180, 184; its ment, 328 ; false distinction between
Browning and Swinburne, 330.
theology, 353.
Phihctetes, Warren, 283.
Parleyings, etc., Browning's, 427.
Philology, Landor's, 65.
Parody, 272, 273, 304.
Phocceans, Landor's, 41.
Parr, Samuel, 37.
Parsons,
of Dante,"
Thomas,
364. lines " On a Bust Piano-music, a term applied to recent
verse, 191.
Pindar, 60, 204, 205.
Pascal, Blaise, 147.
Passion, two kinds, 91 ; Pippa Passes, Pippa Passes, Browning's, 306, 313,
315-319; his most simple and beau
316; moral of Browning's, 332; en
nobling to Art, 333 ; Tennyson's in
tiful drama, 315; scene between Ottima and Sebald, 316-318; too intel
crease of, 416, 420; Rossetti's son
nets, 439 ; recent lack of, 482.
lectual and subjective, 318 ; a work
of pure art, 319 ; its faults and beau
Pastoral Verse, of Wordsworth, Bry
ant, and Buchanan, 349; Munby's, ties, 319; quoted, 339.
Plagiarism, 210, 211.
" Pathetic
454Fallacy," the, 445.
Plato, 14, 119, 303; Landor's opinion,
70; description of a poet, 149.
Patmore, Coventry, 266, 367, 446.

INDEX.
Play, Form of the, its advantages for
a masterpiece, 295.
Playwrights, 295 ; Buchanan, 445 ; and
see 471, 472.
Plea of the Midsummer Fairies,
Hood's, 75.
Pleiade, the French, 474.
Plumptre, Edward Hayes, 246.
Poe, Edgar Allan, Sonnet to Science,
8; indebted to Procter, 106; esti
mate of Tennyson, 154, 210; Thom
son's likeness to, 455, 456; and see
Americati Poets.
Poemata et Inscriptions, Landor's,
43Poems, Tennyson's volume of 1832,
158, 210; of 1842, 160.
Poems and Ballads, Swinburne's, 389396 ; criticism evoked by this book,
390 ; the poet's rejoinder, 390 ; re
printed in America, 390 ; a collec
tion of early poems, 391, 392; me
diaeval studies, 392 ; French, He
braic, and Italian influences, 393 ;
poetic quality, 394 ; extravagance,
395 ; novel and beautiful metres,
395 ; a suggestive volume, 396.
Poems and Ballads, 2d Series, Swin
burne's, 434.
Poems before Congress, Mrs. Brown
ing's, 143.
Poems by Two Brothers, 1 57.
Poems, chiefly Lyrical, Tennyson's,
157, 158.
Poems of Rural Life, Barnes's, 279.
Poetic Decline, Mrs. Browning's, 143.
Poetic Revival (1791-1824), 22, 240.
Poetry, compared with sister-arts, 3,
1 56 ; Poetry and Science, 8, 20 ; its
office, 16; "poetry of the future,"
21, 31, 32, 341 ; its reserved domain,
21; advance as an art, 25-27; the
lasting kind, 76 ; Arnold's theory,

95, 97 ; four great orders, 204 ; dif


fusion of inferior verse, 256; Poetry
a jealous mistress, 258 ; elements as
an art, 293 ; a means of expression,
298 ; what constitutes a poet, 298 ;
misuse of the term, 299; Brown
ing's theory, 301 ; Lessing on Po
etry and Painting, 358 ; obligations
of the former to the latter, 358 ; a
century of, 41 5 ; annotation of, 43 1 ;
vitality of, 441, 474; national style
required, 481 ; and see Latter-Day
Poets, Miscellaneous Poets, Dramatic
Poetry, Idyllic Poetry, etc., etc.
Poetry of the Period, The, Austin's es
says, 450.
Poets of America, by the author of
this volume : references to, 2, 3, 4,
18, 20, 21, 22, 25, 28, 37, 53, 77, 81,
82, 96, 99, 118, 120, 146, 147, 148,
150, 161, 166, 189, 190, 191, 199, 244,
25'. 253. 258. 266. 272, 279.
290,
295. 299- 343. 344. 37o, 372, 45. 455.
473. 479Political Verse, Swinburne's, 436.
Pollock, W. H., 466.
Pollok, 452.
Polyglot poets, 466.
Pope, imitated by Landor, 39 ; resem
blance between him and Tenny
son, 184 ; difference, 185 ; deficient
in suggestiveness, 186 ; " Pastorals,"
215; and see 40, 60, 154, 163, 200,
Popularity,
232, 273, 274.
no guarantee of fame,
452.
Positivism, "Geo. Eliot," 254; Call,
Blind, etc., 457.
Poverty, unfriendly to Art, 81, 82 ; fel
lowship of the poor, 83 ; the " gen
teel poor," 83.
Praed, Winthrop Mackworth, 238, 272.
Pre-Chaucerian Period, 369.

INDEX.
Pre - Chaucerian Verse and Method,
179. 359. 378.
Precision of Touch, 361.
Precocity, 243.
Pre - Raphaelitism, Tennyson's, in
youth, 155, 176; Browning's, 339;
the painters of the school, 358 ; its
relation to academic art, 358 ; Rossetti's, in poetry and painting, 359 ;
Morris's, 369 ; feeling of the true
disciple, 369, 370 ; its Stained-Glass
verse, 477 ; and see 266, 300, 463.
" Prince Hohenstiel - Schwangau,"
Browning's, 337.
Princess, The, Tennyson's, 164-167,
220, 225.
Prior, 473.
Procter, Adelaide Anne, 107, 254, 280.
Procter, Bryan Waller (" Barry Corn
wall "), 73 ; review of his career and
writings, 100-113; his birth, 100;
a natural vocalist, 100; genuine
quality of his songs, 101, 102 ; his
youth and early associates, 103 ; a
pioneer of the recent school, 103 ;
preface to his " Dramatic Scenes,"
103; a pupil of Leigh Hunt, 103;
restrictions upon his dramatic gen
ius, 104 ; a poet of the Renaissance,
105 ; Dramatic Scenes, etc., 105 ;
his influence upon other poets, 106 ;
Mirandola, 107 ; poems of a later
date,
107
108 ; home
English
107 ; and
hisSongs,
domestic
daughter
109-112;
happiness,
Adelaide,
their

511

Progress, Law of, in Art, 17, 27.


Prometheus, of ^Eschylus, 42 ; trans
lated by Mrs. Browning, 121.
Prometheus Unbound, Shelley's, 380,
386, 388.
" Promise of May, The," Tennyson's,
418.
Propagandism, 351, 353; Buchanan's,
355. 3SProse, rarely confused with Verse by
true poets, 37 ; Landor's, 37, 42, 49,
51 ; Arnold's, 99, 100 ; Mrs. Brown
ing's, 123 ; recent prose-writers who
have written poetry, 251-253 ; sharp
ly distinguished from poetry, 299 ;
Swinburne's, 401, 404, 438 ; Gosse's,
458.
Prose Romance, a rival to poetry,
343 ; the modern period of, 343.
Protectorate, The. See Cromtvellian
Period.
Psychological Verse, Browning's, 297,
309; and see 416, 43!-433. 465. and
Neo-Romantic School.
Ptolemy Philadelphus, 206, 207.
Public Taste, law of change in, 1 50 ;
application to Tennyson, 151, 152.
Publishers, 479.
Puritans, the, 309.
Pye, Henry James, 34.
Quaintness, Rossetti's, 361, 362.
Quality, deficient in Arnold, 93 ; in
Tennyson, 183; an intuitive grace,
258, 259 ; quality and quantity, 361 ;
Eric Mackay's, 461.
Quarles, Francis, 283.
Queen Anne's Time, 295, 416, 4S1.
Queen Mary, Tennyson's, 413, 418.
Queen Mother, Swinburne's, 384-386,

number and beauty, 109; Stoddard's


estimate of them, 109; their sur
prising range and variety, 112;
"Dramatic Fragments," 113; his
old age and death, 113; "A Blot in
the 'Scutcheon " dedicated to him,
392, 404.
of Scots. See Mary Stuart.
313 ; and see 26, 167, 236, 258, 412, Queen
441.

512

INDEX.

Radicalism, and conservatism, 423.


Radical Poets, 262, 456, 457.
Rafael, 323.
Raffalovich, M. A., 466.
Range, 47.
Rationalism vs. Calvinism, 329.
Rational method in Art, 9.
Real and Ideal, 332.
Realism, modern, 12; Tennyson's,
188; Patmore's, 266; DobeU's, 267 ;
limits of, 304; as a substitute for
imagination, 327 ; abuse of the
term, 359 ; definition of true, 478.
Red Cotton Night-Cap Country, Brown
ing's, 337Reform-verse, Buchanan's, 355.
Refrains, Mrs. Browning's, 145, 146.
" Reign of Law," Palgrave's, 245, 247.
Religious feeling, Mrs. Browning's,
147 ; Tennyson's attitude, 192.
Renaissance, the, 105 ; revival of old
forms, 286; a fashion of the day,
477, 479Republicanism, Landor's, 64 ; Swin
burne's, 399, 423.
Reputation, 356.
Restraint, Arnold's, 91 ; lack of, among
subjective poets, 145 ; Buchanan's
need of, 348 ; an element of perfect
art, 410.
Retrospective Summary, 412-414.
Return
312, 313
ofthe
; classical
Druses, form,
Browning's,
313. 310,

" Rhyme of the Duchess May," Mrs.


Browning's, 125.
Rhythm, Tennyson's, 226, 227 ; Swin
burne's, 380-383, 402.
Richter, Jean Paul, 147.
Rienzi, Miss Mitford's, 236k
Rime of the Ancient Mariner, 86.
Ring and the Book, Browning's, 334
336 ; deemed his greatest work, 334 ;
an intellectual prodigy, 334 ; outline
f, 335 , style of certain passages,
335; estimate of, as a poem, 336 ;
and see 341.
Rispetti and Slornelli. See Italian
Period.
Ritualism, 410.
" Rizpah," Tennyson's, 42a
Roberts, Charles G. D., 469,
Robinson, A. Mary F., 463.
Robinson, Crabb, 51.
Rodd, Rennell, 467.
Rogers, Samuel, 235.
Roman, The, Dobell's, 267.
Romanticism, 74; French Romantic
School, 284 ; carried to an extreme,
284, 285; contrasted with classi
cism, 313; the early, 359; Swin
burne's, 404 ; and see 412, and NeoRomantic School.
"Romaunt of the Page," Miss Bar
rett's, 123.
" Rosamond," Swinburne's. See Queen
Mother.
Reverence
192.
in Art, 148; Tennyson's, " Rose Aylmer," Landor's, 46, 303.
Rossetti, Christina Georgina, 280,
Revival, Wells's Joseph, 441.
443Dante Gabriel, compared
Revolutionary
399-401.
poems, Swinburne's, Rossetti,
with Tennyson, 176; Neo-Romanticism, 282-284 i Early Italian Poets,
Reynolds, Jane (Mrs. Hood), 89.
276, 360 ; relations with Morris and
Rhapsodists. See Spasmodic School.
Swinburne, 345, 358, 369, 378; re
Rhetoric, 288.
view of his works and career, 357
Rhyme, Browning's use of, discussed,
366; birth, 357 ; distinctive force
428.

INDEX.
and attitude, 357 ; influence as a
leader, 357 ; a circle called by his
name, 357; an early Pre-Raphaelite
in art and poetry, 358, 359; a man
of genius, 359; ballads, 359; Italian
parentage, 360 ; Poems, 360-365 ;
his conscientiousness, 361 ; quaintness of diction and accent, 361, of
- feeling, 362 ; a master of the NeoRomantic school, 361 ; simplicity,
and precision of touch, 361 ; terse
ness, 361 ; an earnest and spiritual
artist, 362 ; melody, 362, 365 ; light
and color, 362 ; " The Blessed Daraozel," 363; mediaeval ballads, 364;
miscellaneous poems, 364 ; a trans
lator from the old French, 364 ; lyr
ical faculty, 365 ; dramatic power,
365 ; a sonneteer, 365 ; his imagina
tion, 365 ; aspects of his poetry and
career, 365, 366 ; The House ofLife,
366, 439 ; his death, 439 ; memori
als of, 439 ; Stained-Glass poetry of
his pupils, 477 ; and see 2, 320, 386,
39'. 392, 4i3. 44i, 4S1. 463. 465- 48,
476.
Ruskin, John, on Art as a means of
Expression, 288 ; his word-painting,
288 ; on popular appreciation, 298 ;
and see 445, 463, 467.
Sacred Verse. See Hymnology.
Sand, George, 120.
Sappho, 115, 435.
Satire, 272; Browning's, 425; Courthope, 471.
Saxon English, in translating Homer,
371 ; Morris's diction, 379.
" Scairth o' Bartle," Buchanan's, 352,
Scenic
Schoell,
Science,
354- Tendency,
its
quoted,
iconoclastic
206,
465,239.
466.
stress, 7 ; bear

513

ing on religion and poetry, 7 ; no


inherent antagonism, 8 ; a tempo
rary struggle, 9; Lyell, Darwin,
Agassiz, Huxley, Spencer, 13, 19;
approaching harmony, 19-21 ; ad
dress of Dr. Wurz, 19; complete
understanding not yet possible, 21 ;
use of scientific material by Tenny
son in " In Memoriam," etc., 170,
193 ; Wordsworth upon relations of
science and poetry, 193 ; effect up
on modern imagination, 343 ; and
see 457.
Scholar-Poets. See University School.
Scholar's work, modern, 479.
Schopenhauer, 455.
Scotland,
recent
Scottishpoetry,
represented
element,
346 346,
; character
by 347.
Buchanan
of the
in
Scott, Clement W., 470.
Scott, Sir Walter, 34, 104, 176, 203.
Scott,
446
World,
; William
and257see; Poet's
270,
Bell,368.
his
Harvest
Year Home,
of the
Scottish
352- Idyls, Buchanan's, 349, 350,
Seasons, The, Thomson's, 188.
Seclusion, effect on Tennyson, 190.
Sensuousness, 389-391.
Sentiment, 470.
Sentimentalism, 237, 412, 478.
Seraphim, Mrs. Browning's, 123, 124.
Serenity of mood, 366.
Serio-Comic Verse, 272, 273.
Shairp, John Campbell, 279.
Shakespeare, his human sympathy,
37 ; stage-presentation of his plays,
38; his women, 314; diction caught
by Swinburne, 385; and see II, 14,
63, 75, 102, 142, 156, 192, 204, 224,
292, 294, 298, 307,329, 381, 413, 442,
" Shakespeare's
461.
Scholar," 24.

514

INDEX.

Shakespeare Societies, 430.


renewal of, 473-475; Dobson and
Sharp, William, his volume on Ros- his influence, 273, 473, 474 ; an in
terlude, 474 ; the Debonair poets,
setti, 439; and see 468.
Shelley, his Adonais, 99; classical 477 ; Kensington-Stitch Verse, 477 ;
instinct, 121 ; translations, 122 ; Mrs. " Sohrab
and seeand
466, Rustum,"
47 1 .
Arnold's, 92
Browning's resemblance to, 1 24 ;
Greek idyls, 232 ; Revolt of Islam, 94354 ; rhythmical genius, compared Song
" SongofofItaly,
the Swinburne's,
Shirt," Hood's,
400.87, 88,
to Swinburne's, 380, 381, 383; Shel
ley societies, 430 ; and see 34, 39,
90, 130.
41, 64, 74, 168, 180, 203, 209, 236, Songs, and Song-Making; the latter
274. 329. 382. 392, 39. 4o, 401.
almost a lost art, 101 ; special quality
411,412, 438,455,476.
of the song, 101 ; Stoddard's defini
"Shenstone,
Shirley,
Shepherd's
" Cyclops,"
James,
William,
Idyl,"
228.
28. 232.
resemblance to
tion of, 102 ; songs of the eighteenth
century, 102; Procter's, 102; Ten
nyson's, 163 ; charm and office of
songs, 258 ; Victorian song-makers,
Sicilian Idyls, 204; and see Greek
258-261 ; Irish and patriotic, 259,
Idyls.
260 ; chartist and democratic, 260,
Sidney, Sir Philip, 52, 147, 176.
261 ; songs in Swinburne's ballads,
395 ; Aide, Marzials, Scott, AshbySigurd the Volsung, Morris's, 443.
Sterry, Merivale, etc., 470, 471.
Simcox, George Augustus, 282.
Simmons, Bartholomew, 255.
Songs before Sunrise, Swinburne's, 400,
Simplicity, Hood's, 88 ; spurious, of 401.
minor poets, 265, 266 ; Tennyson's, Songs of the Cavaliers and Round
266; classical, 313; Rossetti's, 361.
heads, Thombury's, 252.
Songs of the Springtides, Swinburne's,
Singleton, Mrs., 453.
Skepticism, its bearing on creative art, 43518 ; faith and doubt of In Memori- Sonnets, Rossetti's, 365 ; Mrs. Brown
ing's, 365 ; Gosse's, 459 ; Blunt's,
am, 170.
460 ; Watts's, 464 ; Caine's, DowSladen, D. B. W., 469.
Smedley, Menella B., 440.
den's, etc., 465.
Sonnets from the Portuguese, Mrs.
Smith, Alexander, 263.
Smith, the brothers James and Hor
Browning's, 136; reviewed, 137, 138.
Sordello, Browning's, 309, 310; con
ace, 235.
trasted with Sartor Resartus, 310;
Smith, Walter C., 453.
and see 334, 340.
Socialism, increase of, 482.
Societies, the Browning, etc., 430, 431. Souls Tragedy, Browning's, 311, 319.
Society Verse, restored by Praed, Southey, 34, 37, 41, 57, 61, 68, 235,
238 ; " Owen Meredith's," 268 ; re
356, 361, 400, 480.
Spasmodic
Spartacus,"
Gypsey,
School,
261.George
noticeEliot's,
of, 262-265
254. ;
cent, 272; Locker, Calverley, etc., "Spanish
273; characteristics, 272, 273 ; mark
of a refined period, 273 ; specific

INDEX.

5 IS

origin of the epithet, 262 ; satirized 480;


its absence
how toimplies,
maintain,
482. 481 ; what
by Aytoun, 262 ; faults, 263 ; and
trait,
Pippa
Byron's,
Browning's,
147
Passes,
;197
inMrs.
poetry,
296,
;318.Tennyson's,
Browning's,
34047; ; ahurtful
feminine
148to;
197
Spencer,
see 355. Herbert, law of progress, Subjectivity,
'55"Spenser,
Speranza,"
154,260.
176.
Spirituality, of Mrs. Browning, 148 ;
of Rossetti, 362 ; inseparable from
true Realism, 478, 479.
Spontaneity, Procter's, 100 ; Mrs.
Browning's, 145 ; slight in Tenny
son, 183 ; essential to lyric art, 253 ;
Rossetti's, 365 ; M. Collins's, 441 ;
and see 241, 258, 289.
St. Abe, Buchanan's, 355.
Stage-Plays, Buchanan's, 355 ; Tenny
son's, 418, 419; Gilbert's, 472.
Stage, the, 294, 295, 410 ; relation to
modern authorship, 480.
Stained-Glass Poetry, 477.
Stanley, Arthur Penrhyn, 278.
" Statue and the Bust," Browning's,
332Sterling, John, 243.
Stevenson, Robert L. B., 468.
Stoddard, Richard Henry, upon the
lyric and the song, 101 ; eulogy of
Procter's songs, 109; and see 254.
Story, W. W., 465.
Strafford, Browning's, 308, 309, 311.
" Strayed Singers," 236.
Stuart, Mary, Queen of Scots, Swin
burne's ideal of, 404, 405, 407-409.
Studies, a substitute for spontaneous
work, 95; Browning's, 327, their
defects, 327, subjectivity, 327, ex
cessive realism and detail, 327.
Studies in Song, Swinburne's, 435.
Style, Mrs. Browning's, 124; Tenny
son's, 189 ; Browning's, 429.
Style, National, recent lack of, 480482 ; W. P. P. Longfellow quoted,

Suckling, 76, 272, 473.


Suggestiveness, 329.
Sullivan, Arthur S., 476.
"Swain,
Swallow
Charles,
Song,"259.
in The Princess, 220.
Swanwick, Anna, 275, 472.
"Swedenborg,
Sweetness and
148.Light," 100.
Swift, 352.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles, unites
qualities of Browning and Rossetti,
6 ; on Landor's first book, 39 ; pil
grimage to Italy, 71 ; influence, 179 ;
Neo-Romanticism, 281, 283 ; clas
sicism, etc., 313, 386-389, 393 ; erotic
verse, and Browning's, 330 ; asso
ciated with Rossetti and Morris,
345 ; review of his genius and ca
reer, 379-412 ; birth, 379 ; diction
contrasted with Morris's, 379 ; sur
prising command of rhythm, 380383 ; compared to Shelley, 380 ; un
precedented melody and freedom,
38 1 ; the most dithyrambic of poets,
381 ; expression carried to fatiguing
excess, 382 ; voice and execution,
383 ; likeness to Landor, 384, 398 ;
linguistic gifts and attainments, 384 ;
The Queen Mother and Rosamond,
384 - 386 ; Elizabethan manner of
these plays, 384 ; a diversion from
the idyllic method, 386 ; Ataianta in
Calydon, 386-389 ; Poems and Bal
lads, 389-396 ; excitement aroused
by this book, 389, 390 ; " Notes on
Poems and Reviews," 390; a liter

5i6

INDEX.

ary antagonism, 390, 391 ; the vol


ume an outgrowth of the poet's
formative period, 391, 392 ; early
Gothic studies, 392 ; French, He
braic, and classical influences, 393 ;
lyrical genius, 394-399 ; " Ave atque
Vale," 396, 398 ; Baudelaire, 396 ;
tribute to Gautier, 398 ; Latin and
Greek verse, 398, 399 ; revolution
ary poems, 399 ; the poet's grand
father, 399 ; Song of Italy, 400 ;
" Ode on the French Republic,"
400 ; Songs before Sunrise, 400 ; few
early poems of Nature, 401 ; prosewritings, 401 ; critical traits, 401,
402 ; Under the Microscope, 402 ; es
timate of American poets, 402, 403 ;
Chastelard, 404-406 ; the poet's con
ception of Mary Stuart, 404 ; Bothwell, 406-410 ; the author in the
front rank of modern dramatic po
ets, 406 ; the Stuart " trilogy," 406
et seq. ; lack of restraint, 410 ;
amount and richness of his work,
411,434; application, 41 2 ; aleader
of recent form, 434 ; Erectheus, 434 ;
Poems and Ballads, 2d Series, 434 ;
elegiac odes, etc., 435 ; Studies in
Song, ib. ; Songs of the Springtides,
ib. ; A Midsummer Holiday, ib. ; A
Century of Roundels, 436 ; political
verse, ib. ; Tristram ofLyonesse, ib. ;
later dramas, 436-438 ; Mary Stu
art, 436 ; Marino Faliero, 437 ; com
pared to Byron, 438 ; Victor Hugo,
438 ; prose Miscellanies, ib. ; liter
ary influence, ib. ; and see 2, 31, 38,
43, 71, 168, 187, 290, 320, 325, 357,
364, 413, 441, 445, 450, 461, 466, 467,
Sylvia,
Swinburne,
Sympathy,
469, 476.
Darley's,
law
Sir of,
John,
236.
in Art,
399. 38.

Symonds, J. Addington, 447-449 ; an


exemplar of Taste, 448.
Synthesis, 182, 241.
Tadema, Alma, 257.
Taine, H. A., critical theory, 1, 410,
434; quoted, 143; analysis of Ten
nyson, 194 ; its defects, 195, merits,
195, 196 ; estimate of De Musset
and Tennyson, 195.
Talent, distinguished from genius,32l,
448.
Talfourd, Sir Thomas Noon, 236, 419.
Tasso, 11.
Taste, British, subordinate to love
of novelty, 31 ; deficient in Mrs.
Browning, 1 26 ; faultless in Tenny
son, 187; the parent of versatility,
368 ; Symonds an exemplar of, 447,
448.
Taylor, Bayard, tone of his early lyr
ics, 112; translation of Faust, 276.
Taylor, Jeremy, 65.
Taylor, Sir Henry, his Preface to
Philip van Artevelde, 28, 29, 237 ;
and see 2, 47.
Technique, recent perfection of, 22,
412, 458; Landor's, 65; Morris's,
374 ; recent models, 416.
Temperament, Byron's, and Mrs.
Browning's, 198; the poetic, when
unsustained by true genius, 264.
Tennant, William, 235.
Tennyson, Alfred, his blank-verse, 46 ;
the same, compared with Arnold's,
93; hints from Procter, 106; con
trasted with Mrs. Browning, 144,
145 ; review of his poems, genius,
and career, 1 50-200 ; birth, 1 50 ;
prolonged influence, 151 ; recently
subjected to adverse criticism, 151,
152 ; "The Flower," and " A Spite
ful Letter," 152 ; represents his era,

INDEX.
1 53 ; an independent leader, 1 54 ;
Poe's opinion of him, 154 ; high
average of his poetry, 155 ; hin
drances to a correct estimate, 155;
a born artist, 155; youthful pieces,
155; their Pre - Raphaelitism, 155,
176; their charm, 156, 157; early
study of details, 1 56 ; Poems, chiefly
Lyrical, 1 57 ; Poems by Two Broth
ers, 157 ; volume of 1832, Poems,
1158-160;
58 ; an expression
sudden poetic
of the growth,
beauti
ful, 158 ; at the head of the " ArtSchool," 1 59 ; tendency of his gen
ius, and influences affecting it, 1 59 ;
Greek
1 59 ; purely
influence,
English1 59idyls,
; " CEnone,"
1 59 ; the
volume of 1842, Poems, 160-164 . a
treasury of his representative po
ems, 160 ; advance in thought and
art, 160 ; formation of his blankverse style, 160; its originality and
perfection, 161 ; epic verse of
" Morte d'Arthur," 161 ; Victorian
idyllic style of his other blank-verse
poems, 162 ; " Dora," " Godiva,"
" Ulysses," etc., 162 ; comprehen
sive range of English Idyls and
Other Poems, 162, 163 ; a composite
and influential volume, 164 ; The
Princess, 164-167 ; its group of lyr
ics, 166; isometric songs, 166; in
tellectual growth and advantage,
167 ; at his prime, 168; In Memoriam, reviewed, 168-172 ; his most
distinctive effort, 168 ; greatest of
elegiac masterpieces, 168, 169; its
metrical and stanzaic arrangement,
169; its general quality, 171; Ten
nyson made Laureate, 172 ; the
Wellington Ode, 172 ; other occa
sional pieces, 173; Maud and Other
Poems, 173, 174 ; Idyls of the King,

reviewed at length, 175-180 ; love


of allegory, 176 ; early and later
blank -verse, 177; recent manner
isms, 179 ; English, 179; steady ad
vance in work and fame, 180; Enoch
Arden and Other Poems, 181 ; " Lu
cretius," 181 ; dialect - poems, etc.,
181 ; general characteristics of his
genius, 182-189 . synthetic perfec
tion, 182 ; lack of spirit and quality,
183 ; a conscientious artist, 183 ;
certain weaknesses, 183 ; Tennyson
and Pope, their points of resem
blance, 184, 185 ; points of differ
ence, 185, 186; supreme and com
plex modern art of Tennyson, 186 ;
taste, 187 ; an idyllist, 187 ; descrip
tive faculty, 188; limitations, 188;
style, 189 ; lack of the true dramatic
gift, 189 -191, 413; secluded life,
190; his ideal personages, 190 ; per
fectly adapted to his time, 191 ; a
liberal conservative in politics, 191,
192, in religion, 192 ; artistic rever
ence, 192 ; verse conformed to mod
ern progress and discovery, 103, 194;
Taine's analysis, its defects, 195 ;
its merits, 195, 196; Tennyson and
Byron contrasted, 196-198 ; their
difference in method, 197, in per
ception and imagination, 197, in
subjectivity, 197, in influence, 198;
Tennyson's ideal poetic career, 198,
199 ; final summary of the forego
ing analysis, 199, 200. (For a sup
plemental notice of Tennyson and
the idyllic school, including his ob
ligations to Theocritus, and a view
of the resemblance between the Al
exandrian and Victorian periods, see
Tennyson and Theocritus?) The
Laureate's influence upon minor
poets, 265-27 1 ; imitated by " Owen

5i8

INDEX.

Meredith," 269; his method easily


studied in the verse of his pupils,
269 ; joins the new dramatic move
ment,^; Queen Mary, 41 3, 418 ; his
prolonged leadership, and Brown
ing's, 416-418; longevity, 417; im
pulsiveness, 418 ; later dramatic
work, 418, 419; "The Cup," "The
Falcon," "The Promise of May,"
418; Harold and Bedel, 419; later
lyrical volumes, 419-422 ; Ballads,
etc., 420 ; Tiresias, 420 ; the second
" Locksley Hall " and " Vastness,"
421, 422 ; elevation to the Peerage,
422-424 ; Whitman on, 424 ; record
as Laureate, 424 ; his relation, and
Browning's, to the Period, 433 ; no
longer imitated, 476 ; and see also
2, 26, 30, 31, 34, 35, 62, 102, 105, 116,
13. 234. 238, 241, 244, 273, 274, 277,
279, 281, 290, 291, 320, 322, 335, 342,
343. 344. 348. 36'. 3. 382, 384. 38.
43. 45. 4Tennyson and Theocritus, resem
blances between these poets, and
between their respective periods,
201-233; text f tne Greek idyls,
201, 212; "Epitaph of Bion," by
Moschus, 201 ; obligations of Ten
nyson to the Syracusan poets, 202 ;
points taken, 202, 203 ; Theocritus,
the father of idyllic song, 204 ; the
fourth great order of poetry, 204 ;
previous references to this subject,
204 ; study of the Alexandrian Era,
205-208 ; Matter and Schoell's de
scriptions, 205, 206 ; comparison of
the Greek and English tongues,
206 ; the reign of Ptolemy II., 207 ;
rise of Theocritus, 207 ; birth of the
idyl, 207, 208 ; Kingsley upon The
ocritus, 208 ; Tennyson at Cam
bridge, 209 ; Warton's edition of

Theocritus, 209, Kiessling's, 209 ;


formation of the Laureate's style,
210; influence of his Dorian stud
ies, 210; two modes of resemblance
between poets, 210, 211; original
translations from the Syracusan po
ets, and their likeness to portions
of Tennyson's verse, 211-231 ; ** Hylas"and " Godiva," 21 1-213 ; meth
od pursued in translation, 212 ; the
elegiac refrain, 213;" CEnone," 213,
214 ; " The Lotos - Eaters," thor
oughly Dorian, 214-217 ; Virgil and
Pope, 215 ; Tennyson's modern idyls,
217-219; the isometric song, 218 ;
amcebean contests, 218 ; where the
Laureate is independent, 219;
Burns, 219; general co-relations of
Theocritus and Tennyson, 2rg ;
" Swallow Song," 220 ; miscella
neous passages compared, 221-225 '.
minor resemblances, 225, 226 ; simi
lar effects of rhythm, 226; Dorian
melody, 227 ; " Cyclops " and the
" Shepherd's Idyl," 228, 229 ; " The
Thalysia" and its modern counter
parts, 229-231 ; Tennyson none the
less original, 232 ; Emerson and
Landor upon originality, 232 ;
pseudo-pastoral verse of other Eng
lish periods, 232 ; the true idyl re
vived by Tennyson, 233; and see
159, 187.
Tennyson, Charles. See Charles Tur
ner.
Tennyson, Frederick, 270.
Tennysonian School, 269-271,440; L
Morris, 45 1-453.
Terseness, 361.
Thackeray, William Makepeace, his
English types, 24 ; gift of sketching,
74 ; grim pathos, 79 ; compared
with Hood, 80; poetic genius, 251,

INDEX.
252 ; humorous verse, 272 ; and see
92, 142, 262, 273.
Thackeray, Miss, 337.
" Thalysia," of Theocritus, 229-231.
" Theatre Francais au Moyen Age,"
Theme,
Theism,
226. recent
Browning's,
lack of,433.
49, 287 ; choice
of, 405 ; and see Tradition.
Theocritus, Landor's paper on, 69 ;
editions of, 204, 209 ; and see 60,
273, 348, 403, and Tennyson and
Theocritus.
Theology. The divine and the poet,
13Theosophy, 450.
Theory, Arnold's poetic, 92.
Thorn, William, 261, 279.
Thomson, 265.
J., author of The City of
Dreadful Night, 455-457 i a man of
posthumous
genius, ib. ; resemblance
volume, 457to; Poe,
and ib.
see;
Thornbury,
480.
Geo. Walter, 252, 262, 440.
" Thyrsis," Arnold's, 98, 99, 168, 396.
Tibullus,Theodore,
Tilton,
224.
his sketch of Mrs.
Browning, 131, 140.
" Timbuctoo," Tennyson's, 209.
Tiresias, Tennyson's, 420.
Tone, effect of, 92.
Tradition vs. Invention, 164, 370.
Training, Arnold an example of, 91 ;
Symonds's, 447-449.
Transcendentalism, a perilous quality
in Art, 127; Home's, 249; that of
Macdonald, Buchanan, and other
North Country Poets, 264; Call,
etc., 457 ; and see 299.
Transition Periods, 14, 157, 342, 412.
Translation and Translators, recent,
273-278 ; new theory of translation,

519

274; versions of Horace, Homer,


Virgil, and other classical texts, 274,
275, 472 ; female translators, 122,
275; versions of Dante, Goethe,
and other mediaeval and modern po
ets, 276, 472; Oriental, 276; this
work a token of a refined and criti
cal period, 276 ; the early translators,
Pitt, Rowe, Cooke, West, and
Fawkes, 276 ; ancient and mediae
val Latin hymns, 277 ; hymns from
the German, 278 ; Rossetti's trans
lations from the Italian, 360, from
the old French, 364 ; Morris's, from
the Icelandic, and from Virgil, 371,
from Homer, 443 ; O'Shaughnessy,
440 ; J. Payne, 445.
Trench, Richard Chenevix, 242, 278.
Trilogies.Landor's, 42 ; Swinburne's,
407.
Tristram of Lyonesse, Swinburne's,
436Trollope, Anthony, 189, 266.
Troubadour Period, 359 ; and see PreChaucerian Verse, etc.
Tupper, Martin Farquhar, 256, 278,
452.
Turner, Charles (Tennyson), 270, 440.
Unconventionalism, 333.
Under the Microscope, Swinburne's
402-404.
Undertones, Buchanan's, 348.
Unities, the classical, 387.
University School, Symonds, 447-449;
Dixon and Bridges, 463 ; Lang, 47 5 ;
and see M. Arnold, etc., etc.
Vane's Story, Thomson's, 456.
Varian, Mrs. ("Finola"), 260.
Variety, Morris deficient in, 371.
" Vastness," Tennyson's, 421, 422
Vaughan, 28, 283.

>20

IXDEX.

Venetian Period, its taste and luxury,


Verbal School, 76.
Versatility, Buchanan's, 355; of the
art-school, 36S.
Vers de SociHi. See Society Verm.
Verse, as a form of speech, 399.
Vitar of H'aiejuld, The, 5*.
Victoria, accession of Her Majesty,
234 ; her jubilee year, 415 ; prolon
gation of her reign, 433.
Victorian Gothic Style, in architec
ture, 48a
Victorian Period, review of its charac
ter and progress in poetry, 1-32 ;
how far it illustrates Taine's theory,
I, 2 ; points of variance from the
same, 1,2; its outset, 4 ; successive
phases and representative poets, 5,
6 ; likeness to the Alexandrian era,
6 ; general conditions, 6 ; its scien
tific iconoclasm, 7, 13, 14 ; effort of
its poets to avail themselves of sci
entific progress, 8, 9, 19, 20, 21 ;
spirit as compared with that of for
mer eras, 10-12, 21, 22 ; realistic
tendencies, 12, 13; transitional as
pect, 14; idealism, 16, 17 ; psychical
phases, 17 ; skepticism, 17, 18; both
transitional and creative, 21 ; tran
sitional in thought and feeling, 22 ;
creative in style and form, 22 ; crit
ical and scholarly, 23 ; restrictions
to ideality : journalism, 23, novelwriting, 23, 25, over-refinement, 23,
over-restraint, 24, high breeding, 24,
impassibility, 24 ; not a dramatic
period, 24, 25 ; not adventurous, 25 ;
great advance in poetry as an art,
25, 26; its effects upon the minor
poets, 28 ; longing for novelty, 29,
31 ; dilettanteism, 29 ; multitude of
verse-makers, 29; leaders and rep

resentative poets, 30, 31 ; the end


already indicated, 31, 32,342 ; prom
ise for the future, 32 ; method of.
34 ; has
male
poet,produced
115; specially
the greatest
represent
fe-~
ed by Tennyson, 1 54 ; resemblance
to Alexandrian Period, 159, 202
909; its peculiar idyllic verse, 162 ;
limits of its typical portion, 415 ;
specific characteristics, 416 ; in
creased likeness to the Alexandrian,
430,431,479; Browning the leader
of its afterprime, 433; Swinburne's
influence, 434 ; recent necrology,
439-442 ; Austin on its Poetry, 450 ;
extreme polish, 45S; the Colonies,
46S-470 ; closing phases, 474-483 .
recent lack of a national style, 4S0482 ; and see 200, 413.
Victor Hugo, Swinburne's essay, 438.
Villon, 435, 445, 474
" Violet Fane." See Mrs. Singleton.
Virgil, 215, 375 ; translations of, 275.
"Virginius," 296.
Vision,
1 27 ; clear,
clouded
in Morris,
in Mrs.
374.Browning,
Vita Nuova, 360.
Vivia Perpetua, Mrs. Adams's, 257.
Vivisection, Browning's skill in, 321,
337.
Voice,
Voice from
382, 383.
the Nile, A, Thomson's,
457.
Volapflk, the new language, 466.
Voltaire, 36, 273.
Wade, Thomas, 256.
Wagner, Browning compared to, 341 ;
and see 443.
Wallenstein, 41, 3 10.
Waller, Edmund, 272, 273.
Waller, John Francis, 259.
Warren, John Leicester, 283, 445.

INDEX.

521

Wolf's Homeric theory, 175.


Warton, Thomas, 34, 40, 209.
Woman, Tennyson's view in The
Warwickshire, 36.
Princess, 167.
Watson, William, 465.
Womanhood,
marriage
140.
andrendered
maternity,
complete
133, 136,
by
Watts, Alaric, 237.
Watts's Hymns, 277.
Watts,
lyrics,Theodore,
464.
435; sonnets and
Woolner, Thomas, 270, 368, 445.
Waugh, Edwin, 279.
Word-painting, 174.
Webster, Augusta, 275, 281, 443.
Wordsworth, Christopher, 278.
Webster, John, 48, 105, 294.
Wordsworth, William, his mission,
Wedded Poets, the Brownings, 333.
and its close, 31, 34, 37 ; compared
Wellington Ode, Tennyson's, 172.
with Landor, 45 ; teacher of Arnold,
Wells, Charles J., Joseph and His
96 ; shaped the mind of the idyllic
Brethren, 441.
school, 104, 105 ; influence on Ten
Wesley's Hymns, 277.
nyson, 155; blank -verse, 161; on
Westwood, Thomas, 271.
Science and Poetry, 193 ; birth and
Whims and Oddities, Hood's, 77.
death, 235 ; influence on the minor
White, Richard Grant, essay on " The
poets, 241 - 248 ; simplicity, 267 ;
quoted, 298 ; influence on Buchanan,
Play of the Period," 24.
White Rose and Red, Buchanan's, 355.
347 ; and see 4, 15, 22, 56, 58, 154,
167, 180, 198, 199, 203, 209, 237, 238,
Whitman, Walt, 402 ; on Tennyson,
240, 242, 265, 292, 303, 320, 348, 349,
424 ; and see 428, 450, and Ameri
396,400, 412, 415, 4I7.476can Poets.
Whittier, John Greenleaf, extract from Wordsworthian School, 241-248, 444.
Miriam, 14 ; and see American Poets. Worsley, Philip Stanhope, 275.
Wilde, Lady (" Speranza"), 260.
Wright, Ichabod Charles, 275.
Wilde, Oscar, 467.
Willis, Nathaniel Parker, 246.
Young, 361.
Wills, W. G., 472.
Youth, united to the party of the fu
ture, 358 ; Arnold's expression of,
Wilson, John, 235, 480.
Winkworth, Caroline, 278.
442 ; Tennyson's Youth and Age,
Wiseman, Cardinal, 328.
421, 422.

THE END.

POETS

OF

AMERICA.

With full Notes in margin, and careful Analytical Index.


By Edmund Clarence Stedman, author of " Victorian Poets," etc. Fourth
Thousand. l2mo, $2.25; half calf, $4.50.
Contents : Early and Recent Conditions ; Growth of the American School ;
William Cullen Bryant; John Greenleaf Whittier; Ralph Waldo Emerson;
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ; Edgar Allan Poe ; Oliver Wendell Holmes;
James Russell Lowell ; Walt Whitman ; Bayard Taylor ; The Outlook.
AMERICAN CRITICISMS.
The appearance of this book is a notable event in American letters. No
such thorough and conscientious study of the tendencies and qualities of our
poetry has been attempted before, nor has any volume of purely literary criti
cism been written in this country upon so broad and noble a plan and with
such ample power. . . . Mr. Stedman's work stands quite alone ; it has had no
predecessor, and it leaves room for no rival. New York Tribune.
It is indeed refreshing to come upon a volume so devoid of the limitations'
of current criticism, so wholesome, so sane, so perceptive, so just, and so vivi
fying as we find in this collection of essays on the " Poets of A merica." ... The
volume may indeed be regarded as epoch-making. Its influence on our na
tional literature is likely to be both deep and lasting. The Literary World
(Boston).
Mr. Stedman's temperament, training, and experience eminently fit him for
the execution of a critical work on the poets of America, or, indeed, the poets
of any land. He has ingrained honesty, breadth of apprehension, versatile
sympathies, exact knowledge, and withal he is a poet with a poet's passion for
beauty and love of song ; and so he is a wise critic, a candid and luminous inter
preter of the many-voiced muse. . . . The candor, sincerity, and sympathetic
spirit in which Mr. Stedman treats the many themes that come under review
in connection with the poets included in his scheme are apparent all through
the treatise. The Dial (Chicago).
Such a work involves many kinds of talent, great patience, and ample schol
arship ; above all, it involves genius, and if the quality of this book were to be
summed up in a single word, this one pregnant word comes first to mind, and
remains after fullest reflection. ... As a body of criticism this volume stands
alone in our literature, and is not likely soon to have a companion ; it justifies
and permanently establishes a reputation in this field already deeply grounded.
It gives our criticism a standard at once exacting and catholic, and it restates,
by way of commentary on our own poetry, the great underlying laws of verse.
It is criticism of a kind which only poetic minds produce. Christian Union
(New York).
Mr. Stedman brings to the task an unusual familiarity with the whole of our
literature, unusual acquaintance with the tools of the poetical ftuild, and a very
keen notion as to how those tools have been used abroad as well as at home.
. . . The studies themselves are admirable. They show a conscience which
takes in good work, and, at the same time, considers the humanities, which
remembers what is due to art, and what must be granted to human frailty.
The Critic (New York).
The book is one which the student and lover of poetry cannot deny himself.
Christian Register (Boston).

It will not be possible for any sensitive reader of the poets of America to
forget that Mr. Stedman is also a poet; but it will be equally impossible for
such a reader to regret it. The solid qualities of the book are the result of
patient, conscientious, scholarly work, which shows on almost every page ; its
finer qualities, the delicate touch of sympathy, the glow of hope, the spiritual
magnetism, are the fruit of tne poetic temperament which no amount of in
dustry can ever cultivate unless it first has the seed. The New Princeton
Review.
A true critical insight enables Mr. Stedman to deal with his subject in a
generous and a noble spirit, and yet in one that is eminently just and faithful
to fact. His critical gifts are of a kind rarely to be found in this country, and
none are more needed in our literature at the present time. Unitarian Heview.
This book should quickly become a standard wherever cultivated persons
desire an honest, sympathetic, suggestive, entertaining, and experienced guide
to the most interesting epoch of American literature. The Independent.
We are greatly indebted to Mr. Stedman for this fine example of what lit
erary criticism should be. . . . No one not himself a poet, and a poet with a
noble spirit, could have written this book. Thomas S. Hastings, D. D.,
in The Presbyterian Review.
This is the history of American poetry ; it is conceived and executed in the
grand style of literary criticism, and it does not fall below its promise. Geo.
E. Woodberry, in The Atlantic Monthly.
In his " Poets of America
FOREIGN
" Mr. Stedman
CRITICISMS.
displays the same competent skill,
honesty of purpose, and painstaking thoroughness of execution [as in his
work on " Victorian Poets ") ; and he adds to these qualities the great ad
vantage of being on his native soil. To the students of American verse his
volume is almost indispensable. . . . Every one will not agree with his con
clusions; but no one can differ from so well-informed and conscientious a
critic without self-distrust. The Quarterly Review (London).
This book, with its few and only superficial defects, and with its many solid
merits, is one which most persons of taste and culture will like to possess.
The Saturday Review (London).
Mr. Stedman deserves thanks for having devoted his profound erudition
and the high impartiality of which he is capable, to making us acquainted with
the literature of poetry as it has existed from the beginning in his country.
His important and thorough study is conducted with the method, the scrupu
lousness, the perspicacity, which he applied formerly to the work of the Vic
torian Poets. La Revue des Deux Mondes (Paris).

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